Memory controller with transaction-queue-monitoring power mode circuitry

ABSTRACT

An integrated-circuit memory controller outputs to a memory device a first signal in a first state to enable operation of synchronous data transmission and reception circuits within the memory device. A transaction queue within the memory controller stores memory read and write requests that, to be serviced, require operation of the synchronous data transmission and reception circuits, respectively, within the memory device. Power control circuitry within the memory controller determines that the transaction queue has reached a predetermined state and, in response, outputs the first signal to the memory device in a second state to disable operation of the synchronous data transmission and reception circuits within the memory device.

PRIORITY CLAIM

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/132,094 filed Jun. 1, 2011, which is a 35 U.S.C. §371 U.S. NationalStage of International Patent Application No. PCT/US2009/050020 filedJul. 9, 2009, which claims priority to the following U.S. ProvisionalPatent Applications:

Application Number Application Filing Date Provisional Application No.61/144,135 Jan. 12, 2009 Provisional Application No. 61/156,872 Mar. 2,2009 Provisional Application No. 61/177,467 May 12, 2009 ProvisionalApplication No. 61/177,478 May 12, 2009 Provisional Application No.61/177,596 May 12, 2009 Provisional Application No. 61/177,599 May 12,2009 Provisional Application No. 61/177,606 May 12, 2009

Each of the above-identified patent applications is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The disclosure herein relates to data communications systems generallyand more specifically to high-speed signaling in low-power applications.

BACKGROUND

Mesochronous clock signals are often used to time signaling operationsin synchronous memory systems. By using the same clock source to providetransmit/receive timing within both the memory controller and memorydevices, frequency drift is avoided, resulting in a relatively simple,robust timing arrangement. Because the clock reference is distributed inspace between controller and memory, however, the clock domains of thetwo chips generally have an arbitrary phase offset with respect to eachother that must be compensated to enable synchronous communication.Complicating matters, the chip-to-chip phase offset tends to driftsubstantially with temperature and voltage, in large part due to theclock buffering circuitry provided within each chip to fan-out the clockto the various transmit and receive circuits.

Many modern memory systems manage the chip-to-chip phase drift bytransmitting strobes or other source-synchronous timing signals tocontrol data sampling within the recipient device, in effect extendingthe clock domain of the transmitting device into the receiving device.Unfortunately, this approach suffers a considerable power/cost penaltyas additional signal drivers, pins and precisely routed signal lines (tomatch the propagation time between strobe and data lines) are usuallyrequired.

Another approach is to compensate for the drifting phase offset byproviding a phase-locked loop (PLL) or delay-locked loop (DLL) withinthe memory controller and each memory device to maintain alignmentbetween the reference clock and the distributed clock (i.e., themultiplicity of nominally same-phase clocks distributed to the variousreceive and transmit circuits). By this arrangement, a substantiallyfixed phase relationship may be maintained between the chips despiteenvironmentally induced drift between their respective clock-bufferdelays.

While the PLL/DLL approach avoids many of the penalties ofsource-synchronous arrangements (especially the consumption of preciouspins), PLL and DLL circuits tend to be power hungry, consuming powereven during idle periods (to maintain phase-lock) and requiringconsiderable time and additional power to restore phase-lock whenawakened from a disabled, power-saving state. All these disadvantagesare particularly problematic in mobile applications (e.g., cell phones,laptop computers and the like), where performance demands and burstytransaction profiles make it difficult to disable locked-loop operationand yet the large idle power of the locked-loop circuits drains preciousbattery life.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The disclosure herein is illustrated by way of example, and not by wayof limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in whichlike reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which:

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a generalized embodiment of a memory systemhaving a clock-stopped low-power mode;

FIGS. 1C and 1D contrast an exemplary power consumption profile in thepause-able-clock memory device of FIG. 1 with an exemplarypower-consumption profile for a continuously-clocked PLL/DLL-basedmemory device under the same usage scenario;

FIG. 2A illustrates an embodiment of memory-side and controller-side I/Ocircuitry and system clocking architecture in greater detail;

FIG. 2B illustrates the memory-side timing arrangement described inreference to FIG. 2A, showing the system clock signal and data signal asthey appear at the pins (or other interconnection structures) of thememory device, as well as the buffered clock signal as applied to amemory-side transmitter;

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate an embodiment and timing diagram of adrift-compensating deserializer that may be used to implement any of thedrift-compensating deserializers in FIG. 2A;

FIGS. 3C-3E illustrate an embodiment of a packet-alignment circuit thatmay be applied within the drift-compensating deserializer of FIG. 3A andmanner of adjusting same;

FIGS. 3F and 3G illustrate an embodiment and timing diagram of adrift-compensating serializer that may be used to implement any of thedrift-compensating serializers shown in FIG. 2A;

FIG. 3H illustrates an embodiment of a packet-alignment circuit that maybe applied within the drift-compensating serializer of FIG. 3F;

FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate embodiments of deserializer and serializercircuits, respectively, that may be used to implement the deserializerand serializer circuits within the memory device of FIG. 2A;

FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary approach to calibrating the receiveclock phases within the drift-compensating deserializers for data linksDQ0 and DQ1 within the embodiment of FIG. 2A;

FIG. 5B illustrates a particular embodiment the intra-bit clock-phasearrangement of FIG. 5A without detail regarding the various dataselection paths;

FIG. 5C demonstrates an approach for determining a final receive clockphase, showing an exemplary relationship between a number of clockphases selected by an exemplary phase selector and pass-fail boundariesrelative to a data-eye schmoo;

FIG. 5D illustrates fine and coarse data-eye boundaries and an offsetbetween the fine-data-eye center and coarse-data-eye fail-boundary thatmay be used to track drift during periodic timing calibrationoperations;

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate an exemplary bit-alignment (or packet-framingadjustment) stage of the drift-compensating deserializer calibration;

FIG. 6C illustrates an exemplary packet alignment operation carried outto determine a word latency value that, when applied to the packetalignment circuits within the various signaling links of FIG. 2A, alignsthe packets that form part of the original multi-packet value retrievedfrom the memory core for simultaneous transfer into the controller-coreclock domain;

FIGS. 7A, 7B and 8A-8C illustrate exemplary serializer calibrationprocedures that rely upon cross-coupled loopback paths betweenrespective pairs of signaling links within the memory device;

FIGS. 9A and 9B illustrate exemplary sequences of operations used toperiodically calibration of the drift-compensating serializers anddrift-compensating deserializers, respectively;

FIG. 10A depicts an embodiment of an alignment counter that correspondsto the six-bit phase adjustment circuitry described in reference toFIGS. 3A and 3C;

FIGS. 10B and 10C illustrate an embodiment of periodic timingcalibration circuitry and a corresponding state diagram;

FIG. 11A illustrates an exemplary clocking arrangement used within theembodiment of FIG. 2A, explicitly showing clock stop logic for thecontroller I/O clock and for the data-rate system clock forwarded to thememory device;

FIG. 11B is an exemplary timing diagram of the clock-stop (or clockpause) operation of the FIG. 11A clocking architecture;

FIGS. 11C and 11D illustrate a more detailed embodiment of a clock-stoplogic circuit and corresponding timing diagram;

FIGS. 11E-11G illustrate an alternative clock-stop architecture andcorresponding circuit and timing diagrams;

FIG. 12A is an exemplary timing diagram of clock signals, clock-enablesignals and command/address signals at the memory controller during aninterval that includes entry and exit from a clock-stopped low powermode;

FIGS. 12B and 12C illustrate clock-stop mode entry and exit from theperspective of the memory device;

FIG. 13 illustrates clock-stop entry and exit according to analternative embodiment that permits the clock-stop interval to extendover a non-integral number of core clock cycles;

FIGS. 14A-14C relate to an embodiment of a phase-alignment circuit thatenables adjustment of the phase offset between the core clock signalswithin the memory controller and memory device;

FIGS. 15A and 15B illustrate an exemplary clock-stop operation used toavoid clock glitches when entering and exitingperiodic-timing-calibration mode;

FIGS. 16A-16F relate to an alternative manner of performingperiodic-timing calibration that enables glitchless phase jumpingwithout clock-stoppage;

FIG. 17A illustrates an embodiment of a pause-able-clock memory systemhaving a single controller IC and multiple memory ICs;

FIG. 17B illustrates an embodiment of a pause-able-clock memory systemhaving a module-mounted buffer IC that implements an interface thatcorresponds to the memory-side I/O interface shown in FIG. 2A;

FIG. 18A is an exemplary state diagram illustrating tiered power modesthat may be employed within the memory system of FIGS. 1A and 2A;

FIG. 18B illustrates a memory system architecture that corresponds tothe embodiment of FIG. 2A, but showing additional detail with respect tocircuit shut-down in progressively reduced power modes;

FIG. 18C illustrates an implementation of a differential amplifierhaving a biasing circuit that may be disabled in a reduced power mode;

FIG. 18D is a timing diagram illustrating command-based assertion of theenable-write and enable-read signals (EnW and EnR) in response toincoming memory write and memory read requests, respectively; and

FIG. 18E is a timing diagram illustrating powerdown mode entry and exit,with the exit being triggered by a memory write request.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A strobeless synchronous memory system that permits mesochronoustransmit and receive clocks to be stopped and restarted during idleperiods between memory access transactions is disclosed in severalembodiments. By this operation, power consumption during idle periodsmay be dramatically reduced relative to continuously-clocked designs.Further, because idle time often far exceeds active memory transactiontime (active time) in the aggregate, particularly in power-sensitivemobile devices, the ability to reduce idle-time power consumption mayyield substantially lower net power consumption.

Despite the substantial power-saving achieved through idle-timeclock-stop (or clock pause), stopping transmit and receive clocks in amesochronous signaling system brings a cascading sequence of challenges.To start, loss of phase-lock in the memory-side PLL presents animmediate performance problem as the PLL generally requires anintolerably long time to re-establish phase-lock and even then willgenerally re-lock in an uncalibrated state that requires phasecalibration to be completed before reliable data-rate signaling maybegin. And yet, removal of the memory-side PLL presents a daunting setof problems, beginning with extensive environmentally-induced phasedrift within the memory-device, as well as loss of critical timing edgesneeded within the memory device for transmit and receive clocking. Thatis, an on-memory PLL conventionally performs the dual functions ofcompensating for temperature/voltage-induced phase drift and providingthe timing edges needed for data-rate signaling by multiplying thefrequency (or number of phases) of a relatively low-frequency systemclock.

Despite these challenges, PLL/DLL circuitry is omitted from thememory-device clocking architecture in embodiments disclosed herein andthe phase of the memory device timing domain is permitted to driftfreely relative to the memory controller timing domain. Further, insteadof encumbering the memory device with complex drift-compensationcircuitry, the drifting phase offset between the memory-controller andmemory-device timing domains is compensated by circuitry within thememory controller. As discussed below, in absence of an on-memory PLL,the memory-device phase drift may extend well beyond a unit interval(i.e., the time interval allotted to bit or symbol transmission, and theinverse of the data signaling rate or data rate; unit interval is alsoreferred to herein as a bit time or symbol time), adding substantialcomplication to the timing compensation effort and clock start/stopcoordination.

Omission of the memory-side PLL/DLL and concomitant loss of the secondof the conventional on-memory PLL functions—generation of data-ratetiming signals from a relatively low frequency system clock signal—iscounteracted by a change in the system clocking arrangement itself. Morespecifically, instead of distributing a low frequency system clock thatmust then be frequency-multiplied (or phase-distributed) by on-memoryPLL/DLL to provide data-rate timing edges, a data-rate clock signalitself is distributed as the system clock signal, thereby avoiding theneed for a frequency-multiplying (or phase distributing) PLL/DLL circuitwithin the memory device. While this approach suffers the potentiallyhigher power consumption involved in transmission and on-chipdistribution of a higher-frequency clock, omission of the memory-sidePLL/DLL obviates loss-of-lock considerations that plague conventionaldesigns and, when combined with, for example and without limitation,drift compensation circuitry and clock-stop/start management circuitryas described herein, enables a clock-stopped low-power mode that may berapidly entered and exited with negligible performance penalty.Ultimately, for applications that exhibit bursty memory access profiles(e.g., frequent idle periods interspersed among relatively brief periodsof active memory access, as in cell phones and other mobile devices),the idle-time power savings tends to vastly outweigh any increasedactive-time power consumption; a savings multiplied by the number ofmemory devices in the system.

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a generalized embodiment of a memory system100 having a clock-stopped low-power mode. The memory system includes amemory controller 101 and a memory device 103 coupled to one another viasignaling links 102 and system clock link 108. The memory controlleritself includes a controller core 105 and an input/output (I/O)interface 107 (or PHY; physical interface) and the memory devicesimilarly includes a memory core 131 and I/O interface 133. The I/Ointerfaces within the memory device and memory controller (i.e., the“memory-side” and “controller-side” I/O interfaces) include signalingcircuitry (117, 119, 137, 139) to support bi-directional data transfervia one or more data links 106 and unidirectional command (or request orinstruction) transfer via one or more command/address (CA) links 104.The controller-side I/O interface additionally includes a clockgenerator 115 to generate a system clock signal (system clock, SCK) thatis forwarded to the memory device via clock link 108 and distributed tomemory-side signaling circuits 137 and 139 via clock buffer 135 andinternal clock path 136. The clock generator also generates a set ofcontroller-side clocks that are distributed via internal clock path 110to the controller-side signaling circuits 117 and 119.

Referring to the memory device 103, the memory core 131 includes a corestorage array 132 arranged in one or more banks as well as accesscircuitry 134 for managing read and write access to the core storagearray in response to memory access commands and addresses from thememory controller. In embodiments described below, the core storagearray is assumed to be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) thatrequires occasional refresh to avoid data loss, but virtually anystorage technology may be used in alternative embodiments including,without limitation, static random access memory (SRAM) and various formsof non-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory, phase-change memory, etc.).Regardless of the storage technology used, command and address values(command/address or CA values) conveyed to the memory device via commandlinks 104 (collectively, the “command path”) are used to carry out dataretrieval (memory read) and data storage (memory write, includingnon-volatile cell programming) operations within address-specifiedregions of the core storage array 132. Retrieved data is referred toherein as “read data” and is returned to the memory controller via thedata links 106 (collectively, the “data path”) and data to be stored orprogrammed (“write data”), conversely, is provided from the memorycontroller via the data path. In some cases, data-less commands, such asrow-activation commands (instructing data transfer from storage cellswithin the core storage array to a latching sense-amplifier bank),refresh commands, erase commands (e.g., in the case of flash or otherelectrically-erasable non-volatile memory) and various configurationcommands and/or operating-mode commands may be issued via the commandpath.

Reflecting on the embodiment of FIG. 1, a number of features of thememory-side clocking arrangement bear emphasis. First, the clock signaloutput from clock buffer 135 (i.e., the buffered clock signal) is aphase-delayed instance of the system clock signal; no frequencymultiplication or multi-phase clock generation occurs within the memorydevice so that the frequency of the system clock signal itselfestablishes the data transmission and sampling rate within thememory-side I/O circuitry, and thus the signaling rate over signalinglinks 102. Thus, contrary to the conventional approach of distributing alower frequency system clock and providing PLL/DLL circuitry to generatea data-rate clock signal by multiplying the clock frequency orgenerating additional clock phases, a data-rate clock signal itself(i.e., a clock signal that includes a respective timing edge for eachsymbol transmitted over the data link) is supplied to the memory deviceas the system clock signal. One consequence of this approach is thatadditional buffer amplifiers may be required in the chain of amplifiersthat form the clock buffer 135 in order to achieve the desired gain(i.e., gain tends to drop with frequency, so that additional gain stagesmay be required at the higher clock frequency), thereby requiringadditional power to distribute the data-rate clock signal throughout thememory device as opposed to distribution of a lower-frequency,multi-phase clock signal. As discussed above, despite the putativedisadvantage of replacing a conventional clock distribution arrangementwith one that may consume more power, the omission of afrequency-multiplying PLL/DLL makes it possible to rapidly transitionbetween low-power-mode clock-stopped states and active-mode clockedstates without incurring the usual time-delay penalty associated withre-acquiring phase lock. Consequently, clock-stopped low power modes maybe entered even during relatively brief idle periods (between bursts ofmemory access activity) with negligible performance impact. Becauseaggregate idle time far exceeds aggregate active memory access time inmany applications, substantial power reduction during idle time at thecost of a slight increase in active-time power may yield a substantialnet reduction in power consumption. This result is illustratedgraphically in FIGS. 1C and 1D, which contrast an exemplary powerconsumption profile in the pause-able-clock memory device of FIG. 1 withan exemplary power-consumption profile for a continuously-clockedPLL/DLL-based memory device under the same usage scenario. As shown,despite the somewhat higher active-time power in the pause-able clockmemory, the substantially reduced idle-time power consumption yields amuch lower net power consumption than in the continuously-clocked memorywhich suffers from the large idle power consumption in the on-memorylocked-loop employed to anchor the memory-side timing domain to thephase of the system clock signal.

Another feature of the memory-side clocking arrangement is that theclock distribution circuitry is entirely open loop within the memorydevice; as discussed, there is no locked-loop circuitry to compensatefor the time-varying (i.e., drifting) phase delay between the systemclock signal and the buffered clock signal distributed to thememory-side I/O cells. Moreover, both the magnitude and environmentalsensitivity of the system-clock-to-buffered-clock phase delay isincreased by the additional stages of amplification provided within theclock buffer to account for the higher-frequency data-rate clock signal.That is, each amplifier stage within the clock buffer tends to exhibitan environmentally-dependent (e.g., temperature-dependent and/orvoltage-dependent) propagation delay, so that adding an amplifier stagenot only increases the net system-clock-to-buffered-clock timing skew,but increases the rate of change (i.e., the drift rate) of the timingskew. Because the buffered clock signal is applied within thememory-side I/O cells to time sampling and transmission operations, thedrifting phase of the buffered clock signal manifests as a correspondingphase drift of read data signals transmitted by the memory device (andrequired change in phase in an incoming write data signal if such signalis to be accurately received). Finally, because the clock buffer delaymay be on the order of several bit times and the net change in clockbuffer delay between temperature and voltage corners (i.e., betweenminimum and maximum tolerable voltage and temperature) may easily exceeda symbol time (or bit time), the transmit or receive clock phase maydrift across one or more bit-time boundaries into an adjacent bit time.This creates additional timing complexity as the data sampling time maybe properly centered between bit boundaries, but off by one or morewhole bit times. As a consequence, data otherwise correctly received maybe improperly framed into parallel sets of data bits (referred to hereinas packets) by receiver-side serialization circuitry.

It should be noted that while the clock distribution arrangement withinthe memory device is open loop, a system-wide closed-loop timingcompensation structure is nonetheless effected, through the acquisitionof phase, bit and packet alignment information during calibrationoperations carried out in view of transmissions between the memorycontroller and memory device. Thus, a multi-component (multi-IC) closedloop is effected in the forwarding of the system clock signal to thememory device, and the acquisition of information indicative of thememory-side phase of the forwarded clock signal (as applied tomemory-side transmit and receive circuits) through controller-managedtiming calibration operations.

Clock-Stop Lower Power Mode

Still referring to FIG. 1A, the controller core 105 includes atransaction queue 109 (or request queue) for queuing memory accessrequests received via a host interface (e.g., from a processor or othermemory access requestor), and a power-mode controller 111 that monitorsthe state of the transaction queue. When the transaction queue becomesempty, the power-mode controller prepares to enter a low-powerclock-stopped mode, depending on whether additional transaction requestsare received (and queued) prior to the completion of a final (i.e., lastdequeued) transaction. If no additional transaction requests arereceived before completion of the final transaction, the power-modecontroller deasserts a clock-enable signal 114 (or asserts a pausesignal) to suspend toggling of the system clock, and preferably (thoughnot required) the controller-side signaling clocks. The resulting clockstoppage or clock pause yields an immediate power savings within thememory device and memory controller, as all transmit and receive clockswithin the memory-side and controller-side I/O circuits stop togglingand thus avoid driving clocked circuitry through the power-consumingrange between bi-stable logic states.

FIG. 1B illustrates the clock-stop effect. Assuming that a final memorytransaction is commenced at clock cycle “0”, the power-mode controllernotes the empty transaction queue and begins counting clock cycles untila time at which internal operations of the memory device andcontroller-side I/O circuitry are complete. In this example, that timeoccurs 24 system-clock cycles after the transaction is commenced, andthus at system clock cycle 24. Shortly thereafter, in this case, longenough to ensure transmission of a final no-operation (NOP) command tothe memory device, the system clock and controller I/O clocks arestopped cleanly and remain in a logic high or low state. At this point,the memory system is idle and in a clock-stopped low power state. Alower-frequency clock within the controller core continues to oscillateand thus permit reception of later-submitted transaction requests. Inthis example, a transaction is queued sometime shortly before systemclock cycle 44. Accordingly, the power-mode controller, detecting thequeued transaction, restarts the signaling clocks (the system clock andcontroller-side I/O clocks) at clock cycle 44, enabling a no-operationcommand to be sent to the memory device, and thereafter permitting theactive command transfer shown, in this example, as an activation commanddirected to a selected bank (B) of the core storage array. Thus, thepower-mode controller reduces power consumption in the idle periodbetween memory access transactions by stopping the mesochronoussignaling clocks upon detecting an empty transaction queue and waitinglong enough for the final transaction to complete, and then restarts thesignaling clocks upon detecting a newly queued transaction. In thisexample, the clock-stop interval extends over what would otherwise besixteen cycles of the system clock signal, significantly lowering totalsystem power consumption during that time. In actual application,stopping the signaling clocks for an idle period of even a fewmilliseconds avoids the power consumption otherwise required formillions of clock transitions. Accumulating that savings over multipleidle periods that, in aggregate, substantially exceed active memorytransaction time, yields substantial power savings with negligibleperformance penalty.

Clocking and Drift Compensation

FIG. 2A illustrates an embodiment of memory-side and controller-side I/Ocircuitry and system clocking architecture in greater detail. In theinterest of clarity and without limitation, specific numbers and typesof signaling links, clock frequencies and frequency ratios, andserialization depths are depicted in FIG. 2A and related figures thatfollow. For example, differential signaling links are provided toimplement each of eight data links (DQ[0-7]), two command/address links(CA[0,1]), a data mask link (DM) and the system clock link (SCK), whilesingle-ended links are used to implement a pair of relatively lowsignaling-rate side-band links (SL[0,1]). Each of the differential linksmay alternatively be single-ended links (and vice-versa), and more orfewer links may be used to implement the command path and/or data path,and the data mask link (which may be considered part of theunidirectional command path) and associated circuitry may be omittedaltogether. The dedicated side-band link may also be omitted in favor ofout-of-band signaling over one of the data or command links.

With regard to clock frequencies and ratios, the system clockingarchitecture is driven by a 400 MHz reference clock signal (REFCK1)which is multiplied by eight within PLL circuit 161 to generate aphase-distributed set of 3.2 GHz controller-side I/O clock signalsreferred to alternately herein as PCK8 or the controller-side I/O clock(the “8” in “PCK8” indicating the 8× multiple of the reference clockfrequency). In addition to driving the controller-side I/O clock, the3.2 GHz PLL output is divided by two in divider 165 to generate thesystem clock, SCK (also referred to herein as PCK4), and divided byeight in divider 163 to produce a controller-side core clock signal(PCK1) that is phase aligned to the system clock and controller-side I/Oclock, but having a reduced frequency for clocking the core and thusallowing lower-power logic operation. In all such cases, different clockfrequencies and frequency ratios between core and I/O timing domains maybe used. Also, while a same-frequency clocking is employed with respectto each signaling link, different I/O clocking frequencies may bealternatively be applied to achieve different signaling rates fordifferent classes of signals (e.g., half-data-rate clocking ofcommand/address signals). Further, in the implementation shown, the 1.6GHz system clock frequency is half the 3.2 Gb/s (Gibabit per second)signaling rate on the data and command links. Though occasionallyreferred to herein as a “half bit-rate” or “half symbol-rate” clocksignal, the system clock is nonetheless considered to be a “data-rate”clock signal as the rising and falling edges within each cycle (or two180°-offset rising edges of complementary signals in a differentialsystem clock implementation) may be used to transmit or sample data inrespective (1/3.2 GHz) data intervals. Though the half-bit-rate(half-symbol-rate) system clock is carried forward in many of theexemplary embodiments that follow, a full-bit-rate clock (3.2 GHz inthis example) may alternatively be forwarded to the memory device as thesystem clock.

Continuing, eight-to-one-serialization is applied to serializecore-supplied 8-bit-wide packets of information for bit-serialtransmission over each signaling link and corresponding one-to-eightdeserialization applied to restore serial bit sequences to 8-bit-widedata for delivery to the counterpart core. For example, eight 8-bitpackets of write data (Wdata[0][0-7]−Wdata[7][0-7]) are serializedduring each period of the 400 MHz controller core clock (PCK1) andtransmitted in respective 8-bit sequences at a 3.2 Gb/s data rate overeach of the eight data links, DQ[0-7] thus providing an aggregate databandwidth of 3.2 GB/s (3.2 gigabytes per second). At the memory device,each of the eight-bit-long write data packets is sampled (bit by bit)and converted to a parallel packet during the cycle time of a 400 MHzmemory core clock (MCK1), thus enabling the memory core, like thecontroller core, to operate on byte-sized packets of data in a lowerfrequency domain. Converse serialization within the memory device anddeserialization within the memory controller are carried out in the readdata transmission from the memory device to the memory controller, thusenabling 3.2 GB/s data transfer from the memory core to the controllercore over a relatively narrow, 8-link data path, while enabling bothdevice cores to operate in a relatively low-frequency clock domain (400MHz in this example). Similar serializing and deserializing operationsare carried out unidirectionally for each of the command/address linksand the data mask link. In all such cases, different serializationdepths (i.e., more or fewer bits per packet) may apply for any or all ofthe links (including depth=1; effectively no serialization ordeserialization at all), generally with corresponding changes incore-to-I/O clocking ratios.

Mesochronous Clocking with Open-Loop Memory-Side Clock Distribution

Because all system timing edges are derived from a common clock signal(i.e., the output of PLL, itself derived from reference clock signal,REFCK1), the various clocks within the system are mesochronous. That is,the various clocks have the same frequency after accounting for anymultiplication/division, but potentially different phases due todifferent propagation times required for the clocks to reach variouspoints of application within the memory controller and memory device. Ingeneral, such propagation times via on-die or inter-chip conductorsremain relatively constant over operating system temperature and voltageranges. Propagation times through active components, however, such asbuffer amplifiers provided to drive clock lines within the memorycontroller and memory device tend to be significantly influenced byenvironmental changes (temperature and voltage, at least) and thus yieldenvironmentally-induced drift between the otherwise relatively steadyphase relationship between the various distributed clocks.

Referring to the memory-side clocking architecture in particular, thesystem clock is received via buffer 223 and driven onto a global clockline 230 by amplifier 229. Because of the relatively large gain neededto drive the global clock line, amplifier 229 tends to include multiplestages, each of which exhibits a substantial environmentally-sensitivepropagation delay. The relatively high frequency of the system clock(i.e., the clock has the same upper spectral component as a worst-casedata signal, as opposed to lower system clock frequency of on-memory-PLLdesigns) generally increases this environmental sensitivity asadditional amplifier stages may be necessary to achieve the desiredsignal gain (i.e., gain generally rolls off with increased frequency).Consequently, the resulting buffered clock signal, referred to herein asthe memory-side I/O clock, or MCK4, not only exhibits substantial phasedelay relative to the incoming system clock signal, but also exhibitsenvironmental sensitivity that may result in drift exceeding one or moreunit-intervals (bit times) over the temperature and voltage operatingrange of the memory device. Further, in contrast to conventional designsthat compensate for the drifting amplifier delay by including the clockbuffer in the feedback loop of an on-memory PLL/DLL, the open-loopdistribution of the amplified system clock signal (i.e., the bufferedclock signal, MCK4) means that any phase drift within the clockamplifier translates directly into phase drift in the memory-sidetransmit and receive clocks and thus manifests as a corresponding phasedrift of read data signals transmitted by the memory device (andrequired change in phase in an incoming write data signal if such signalis to be accurately received). Finally, because the clock buffer delay(i.e., delay through elements 223, 229) may be on the order of severalbit times and the net change in clock buffer delay between temperatureand voltage corners (i.e., between minimum and maximum tolerable voltageand temperature) may easily exceed a bit time, the transmit or receiveclock phase may drift across one or more bit-time boundaries into anadjacent bit time. This creates additional timing complexity as the datasampling time may be properly centered between bit boundaries (edges ofthe data eye), but off by an integer number of bit times. As aconsequence, data otherwise correctly received may be improperly framedinto parallel packets of data bits (e.g., 8-bit packets, 16-bit packets,etc.) by memory-side or controller-side deserialization circuitry.

FIG. 2B illustrates the memory-side timing arrangement described above,showing the system clock signal and data signal as they appear at thepins (or other interconnection structures) of the memory device of FIG.2A, as well as the buffered, memory I/O clock, MCK4, as applied to amemory-side serializer 235 (or single-bit transmitter). As shown, thememory I/O clock exhibits a time-varying delay relative to the systemclock such that the phase of the memory I/O clock and therefore thephase of the read data signal driven onto one of the data links (DQ)drifts freely with respect to the system clock signal. Morespecifically, a first time delay (or phase offset) between system clockand memory I/O clock occurs at a first voltage and temperature point(v0, t0) and, as temperature and voltage drift over time to new points(v1, t1) and (v2, t2), the system-clock to memory-I/O-clock phase offsetdrifts back (drift−) and forth (drift+) by as much as or more than a bittime. Also, while the phase drift on a single data link and instance ofthe memory I/O clock is shown, similar phase drifts, independent inmagnitude and direction from that shown, may inhere in other data links.For example, the phase drift with respect to the system clock signal mayvary from data link to data link due, for example, toenvironmentally-sensitive local clock buffers associated with eachsignaling link and the potentially different propagation delays they mayintroduce.

Drift Compensation within Controller-Side Serializer/DeserializerCircuitry

In the embodiment of FIG. 2A, timing compensation circuitry is providedin conjunction with the controller-side serializer/deserializer circuitsto compensate for the freely drifting transmit and receive clock phaseswithin the memory-side I/O circuitry. More specifically, the timingcompensation circuitry aligns the controller-side I/O timing domain withthe drifting memory-side I/O timing domain on a link by link basis,compensating not only for intra-bit sampling phase error, but alsobit-time misalignment that results when the memory-side phase driftcrosses a bit boundary, and link-to-link packet misalignment caused bydifferent bit-time misalignments in the various links. In effect, thetiming compensation circuitry establishes a drift-tracking transmit andreceive clock phase within each controller-side I/O circuit thatcompensates for phase drift of the receive and transmit clocks in thecounterpart memory-side I/O circuit, including drift across bitboundaries that might otherwise result in dataserialization/deserialization errors (i.e., framing bits into packets atdifferent bit boundaries on opposite sides of the signaling link) anddomain crossing errors as packets are transferred between the clockdomains of the core and I/O circuitry within either the memorycontroller or the memory device.

In the embodiment of FIG. 2A, each drift-compensating deserializerincludes a phase-selecting deserializer 192 to compensate for intra-bitphase drift, and a packet/bit alignment circuit 194 here to compensatefor drift across bit boundaries (bit alignment) and to align packetsreceived via different links for synchronized transfer to thecontroller-core (packet alignment). The drift compensating serializerscontain similar circuitry to adjust the timing of information flowing tothe memory device, providing intra-bit adjustment (phase-selectingserializer 191), and bit/packet alignment (193) to pre-skew the outgoingdata stream for properly timed sampling, bit framing and link-to-linkpacket alignment within the memory device.

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate an embodiment and timing diagram of adrift-compensating deserializer 186 that may be used to implement any ofthe drift-compensating deserializers shown in FIG. 2A. Accordingly, eachinput signal and output signal that is dedicated to a given one of theeight deserializers referenced in FIG. 2A is depicted by an index “[i]”in FIGS. 3A, 3B to indicate that separate instances of the same signalsare input to or output from the other seven deserializers (i.e., i=0, 1,2, . . . , 7). Thus, deserializer 186 is coupled to data link DQ[i] toreceive a serial data signal and outputs an 8-bit wide data packetRdata[i][7:0]. The deserializer additionally receives a 6-bitphase-adjust signal PhAdj [i] [5:0] and a 3-bit bit-adjust signalBitAdj[i][2:0]. The deserializer also receives, along with all otherdeserializers, the controller core clock, PCK1, and the multi-phasecontroller I/O clock, PCK8. In the embodiment shown, the controller I/Oclock is generated by a three-stage ring oscillator, and thus outputs aset of three differential clock signals that are phase distributedwithin the PCK8 cycle time. In other words, in the embodiment of FIG.3A, the controller I/O clock includes clock phases of 0°, 120° and 240°and their complements of 180°, 300° and 60°, thus providing a set of sixclock phases from which a phase-shifted receive clock, RCK8[i] havingany phase offset (i.e., clock phase or phase angle) within a PCK8 cyclemay be synthesized. In one implementation, for example, phaseinterpolator 271 responds to the most significant three bits (MSBs) ofthe six-bit phase adjust value by selecting one of six possible pairs ofphase-adjacent clock phases (i.e., 0°/60°, 60°/120°, 120°/180°,180°/240°, 240°/300° or 300°/0°) and by interpolating (or mixing)between the selected clock-phase pair in response to the leastsignificant three bits of the phase adjust value, thus providing a 60°/8or 7.5° phase step (or resolution) with each increment or decrement ofthe phase adjust value. More or fewer clock phases may be provided inalternative embodiments (with corresponding change in number of phaseselection bits as necessary to meet the number of selectable clock-phasepairs), and/or finer or coarser phase interpolation may be provided.Also, phase interpolator 271 may itself be implemented by any type ofphase shift circuitry including, for example and without limitation,amplifiers having inputs coupled respectively to receive theMSB-selected phase vectors, outputs tied in common and respective drivestrengths controlled by complementary instances of the least-significantthree-bits of phase adjust value. More generally, any type of circuitrycapable of providing a selectable phase offset relative to thecontroller I/O clock, PCK8, may be used in alternative embodiments.Finally, regardless of the interpolator circuit topology, interpolator(or phase-shifting) circuitry included within the topology of FIG. 1Aenables the interpolated clock RCK8[i] to be glitch-free (i.e., noshortened (runt) pulses or invalid logic levels) when the sourcecontroller I/O clock, PCK8, is stopped. As an example, in someembodiments, glitch-free starting and stopping of the interpolated clockis enabled by distribution of an extra pair of one-cycle-delayed copiesof the PCK8[0°] and PK8[180°] waveforms to the interpolator circuitry.Similar arrangements may be used to ensure glitch-free starting andstopping of the controller-side transmit clock phases discussed inreference to FIG. 3F below.

As discussed below, the receive clock phase may initially be calibratedby stepping the phase adjust value through a range of values (or througha binary or other search pattern) to distinguish resulting clock phasesthat yield error-free data reception from those that yield bit errors(i.e., passing clock phases from failing clock phase). In oneembodiment, for example, clock phases that lie on the pass/failboundaries (i.e., adjacent clock phases that respectively yielderror-free reception and bit error) on opening and closing sides of adata eye (or on closing side of one data eye and the opening side of asubsequent data eye) are identified, and the phase centered betweenthose boundaries selected as the calibrated receive clock, RCK8[i].Thereafter, the receive clock phase may be periodically (oroccasionally) adjusted to account for memory-side (or system-wide) phasedrift by re-testing the boundary phases to confirm that they yield thesame passing (or failing) results, and incrementing or decrementing thephase-adjust value for the final receive clock phase to counteract anydrift indicated by a change in the pass/fail boundary.

Flop stages (or latches) 283 form an 8-bit shift register which isserially loaded in response to transitions of the receive clock signal,RCK8[i]. A framing clock signal, RCK1[i] cycles once for every eightcycles of the receive clock signal, and is used to transfer the contentsof the shift register in parallel into a parallel-output register 285,thereby effecting a 1:8 serial-to-parallel conversion. Bit alignmentcircuitry, including modulo-8 counter (formed by 3-bit-wide register 273and increment logic 275) to count negative-going edges of the receiveclock (RCK8[i]) and an adder circuit 277 which adds the three-bitbit-adjustment value (RxBitAdj[2:0]) to the three-bit modulo-8 counteroutput, provides selectable control over the alignment between thereceive clock signal and the framing clock signal. More specifically, ifthe bit-adjustment value is zero (i.e., RxBitAdj [i] [2:0]=000b, ‘b’designating binary), then each time the counter value transitions fromthree to four (011b to 100b), the MSB of the adder output (278) goeshigh and triggers, two receive-clock cycles later (owing to flop stages279 and 281), a corresponding high-going edge of the framing clock(RCK1[i]) signal to load the contents of the parallel-output register.Each increment of the bit-adjust signal causes the adder MSB (andtherefore RCK1[i]) to go high one bit-time earlier, thus enablingalignment of RCK1[i] (or the high-going transition thereof) with thefalling edge of any one of every eight RCK8[i] cycles and thus allowingserial-to-parallel framing to be shifted to any of the eight possiblepacket-framing boundaries within the incoming serial bit stream. In theembodiment shown, each rising edge of RCK1[i] is aligned with a fallingedge of the RCK8[i] signal, so that transfer to the parallel registeroccurs a half-RCK8[i] cycle after the shift register has been loadedwith a new 8-bit packet (and a half RCK8[i] cycle before the first bitof the subsequent packet is loaded into the shift register).

FIG. 3B illustrates the timing arrangement described above, startingwith the multi-phase controller I/O clock, PCK8, (of which only theO'clock phase is shown) and an instance of the phase-shifted receiveclock, RCK8[i], having an arbitrary phase offset 288 with respect to PCK8[0°] and an exemplary phase offset 291 to effect quadrature (i.e.,bit-time-centered) alignment with the incoming data waveform on lineDQ[i]. The most-significant-bit output of the modulo-8 counter (i.e.,RCK1a[i]) cycles once every eight cycles of the receive clock signal andtransitions in alignment with a falling receive-clock edge. Asdiscussed, the framing clock RCK1[i] transitions N+2 receive-clockcycles after the counter output (due to serially-coupled flop stages279, 281) where N ranges from 0 to 7, according to the value of the bitadjustment value, RxBitAdj[i][2:0]. Thus, if the bit adjustment value iszero (000b), the framing clock signal transitions two cycles after theraw counter output and, in the figure shown, a half-cycle after data bit12 (arbitrarily numbered) is loaded into the back end of the shiftregister. Accordingly, with RxBitAdj[i][2:0]=000b, eight bits, numbered5-12, are transferred in parallel from the shift register flops 283 tothe parallel-output register 285, framing those bits as a packet on thestarting and ending bit boundaries between bits 4 and 5, and 12 and 13,respectively. Continuing the example, if RxBitAdj=1 (001b), bits 6-13are framed into a packet, if RxBitAdj=2 (010b), bits 7-14 are framedinto a packet, and so forth to BitAdj=7 (111b), in which case bits 12-19are framed into a packet.

Still referring to FIGS. 3A and 3B, it can be seen that the core clockand framing clock have an arbitrary phase relative to one another due tothe intra-bit phase offset between the receive clock and controller I/Oclock and the bit-wise offset achieved by adding some number (zero toseven) of whole receive clock cycles to the base framing clock phase(RCK1a[i]). Consequently, data transfer from the drift-compensatingdeserializer to the controller core involves a clock domain crossingfrom the framing clock domain to controller core clock domain. Thistransfer is complicated further by the potentially different framingclock domains that may exist within each of the eight drift-compensatingdeserializers. Moreover, if the memory controller (or multiple same-dieor separate-die memory controllers sharing the same clock generationcircuitry) is communicating with two or more memory devices, thedata-timing variability may become even larger than the worst-case for asingle memory device. Thus, in addition to the phase-adjust circuit forintra-bit sampling phase adjustment and the bit-alignment circuitry tocontrol the packet-framing boundary, a packet-alignment circuit isprovided to align the collective set of packets received via respectivedata links for simultaneous transfer into the controller core domain.That is, even though eight packets are transferred in alignment from thememory core to the memory-side I/O circuitry, phase differences betweenthe various data links may result in time-staggered arrival of thepackets at the memory controller and, consequently, framing of thepackets at different bit-offsets relative to one another (and relativeto the controller core clock, MCK1). As a result, one or more of theoriginally-aligned packets may be available relative to a latching edgeof the core clock (PCK1) before others meaning that, absent a mechanismfor delaying transfer of the sooner-arriving packets for alignment withthe later-arriving (more-latent) packets, the constituent packets of theoriginal multi-packet memory word retrieved from the memory core (e.g.,8-byte value in this example) may be temporally dispersed among two ormore memory words upon transfer to the controller core (i.e., thememory-side timing relationship between the constituent packets may belost). Accordingly, in one embodiment, circuitry for ensuring that thememory-core packet alignment is maintained (or restored) in the packettransfer from the controller I/O circuitry to the controller core. Inthe embodiment of FIG. 3A, for example, such packet alignment circuitryis implemented by a packet-wide first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer 287that is loaded by the framing clock (or a one-bit-time-advanced versionthereof referred to as the FIFO clock, FCK1[i]), unloaded by thecontroller core clock, PCK1, and deep enough to hold a number of packetsequal to the integer number of core clock cycles spanned by the intervalbetween the most latent and least-latent packet-framing times underworst-case timing conditions.

FIGS. 3C-3D illustrate an embodiment and corresponding timing diagram ofa FIFO-based packet-alignment circuit 290 that may be used to implementthe packet-alignment circuit 287 of FIG. 3A. The packet-alignmentcircuit 290 includes a four-packet-deep buffer 299, a load circuit 291and an unload circuit 301. The load circuit 291 includes a modulo-4 loadcounter 292 (i.e., count sequence=0,1,2,3,0,1, . . . , implemented byincrement logic 293 and 2-bit register 294) to output a 2-bit loadcount, a 2-bit adder 295 that adds the packet adjust valueRxPktAdj[i][1:0] to the load count, thereby enabling the load count tobe advanced by 0-3 framing clock cycles (i.e., enabling the load countto be adjusted, in effect, to any of the four possible initial countvalues), and a 2:4 decoder 297 that decodes the adder-adjusted loadcount to select one of the four packet registers within 4-deep buffer299 to be loaded with an incoming packet, P[i][7:0] in response to arising FCK1 edge. In effect, the load circuit 291 implements a rotating“load pointer” into the 4-deep buffer, selecting one packet registerafter another in sequence (wrapping from the last packet register to thefirst as the adder-adjusted count rolls over from 3 (11b) to 0 (00b))and the adder 295 enables pointer to be advanced to any starting packetregister position according to the packet-adjust value,RxPktAdj[i][1:0].

Still referring to FIG. 3C, the unload circuit 301 includes a modulo-4unload counter 302 (formed by increment logic 303 and 2-bit register304) to generate a 2-bit count sequence or “unload count” in response torising edges of the core clock signal (PCK1), and a 4:1 multiplexer 305to select, one after another, the four packet-register outputs of the4-deep buffer (SEL0-SEL3) in response to the unload count. Thus, theload circuit 291 loads the packet registers in round-robin fashion(i.e., rotating sequentially through the four packet registers of buffer299) in response to FCK1, and the unload circuit 301 follows therotation of the load circuit, unloading the packet registers inround-robin fashion in response to PCK1. The incoming packet adjustvalue enables the rotating pointer implemented by the load circuit tolead the rotating pointer implemented by the unload circuit by a desirednumber of PCK1 clock cycles. As discussed below, calibration operationsmay be carried out to determine the minimum latency between FIFO loadingand unloading for each link, and then to align all the links by settingthe load-to-unload latency for each link to match the worst-caseminimum.

FIG. 3D illustrates the effect of adjusting the packet-adjust value forexemplary timing data timing patterns on links DQ[0] and DQ[0]. Morespecifically, using the controller core clock (PCK1) as a reference, theFIFO-load clock for link DQ[0] is assumed to lag PCK1 by a fraction of aPCK1 cycle, and the FIFO-load clock for link DQ[0] is assumed to leadPCK1 by roughly the same fraction. Additionally, for purposes ofexplanation, it is assumed that packet adjust values 00, 01, 10 and 11result in initial selection of packet register outputs SEL0, SEL1, SEL2and SEL3, respectively. In actual operation, absent circuitry toinitialize the load counter 292 to a predetermined state, the packetadjust values may yield an initial packet register output selection thatis offset by any of the four possible initial load counter states (00,01, 10, 11).

Assuming that a data read operation (or calibration data transmission)yields an incoming packet sequence of that includes packet ‘i’ (“Pkt i”)on each data link, then the lagging phase of FCK1[0] will result in thesubject packet being received shortly after rising edge N of PCK1(marking the start of the Nth PCK1 cycle, for example, since thecontroller core issued a request or other transmission that yielded thereturn of packet T) and loaded into one of the four packet registers(flop0, flop1, flop2 or flop3) according to the packet adjust value,RxPktAdj[0][1:0]. That is, if the packet adjust value is 00, packet ‘i’is loaded into flop0 (having output SEL0) and remains there for fourFCK1 cycles. Similarly, if the packet adjust value is 01, 10 or 11,packet ‘i’ is loaded into flop1 (SEL1), flop2 (SEL2) or flop3 (SEL3) asshown.

Assuming for the sake of example, that the unload pointer is pointed atflop0 (i.e., packet register output SEL0 is selected by multiplexer305), at sampling (rising) edge N of PCK1 (and then at flop1, flop2,flop3 at PCK1 edges N+1, N+2, N+3, respectively), and assuming furtherthat packet ‘i’ is loaded into flop0 it can be seen that, because thepacket is loaded just after PCK1 sampling-edge N (and thus just afterflop0 is unloaded into the core domain), nearly four full PCK1 cyclesmust transpire between loading packet ‘i’ into flop0 at rising edge 0 ofFCK1[0]) and unloading packet ‘i’ from flop0 at rising edge N+4 of PCK1(the unload being shown sampling indicator 312). From the perspective ofthe core logic, the round-trip latency from request/command output (fromthe core domain) to data return (back into the core domain) requiredthree fewer core clock cycles when the packet adjust value is set to‘01’ than when set to ‘00’ (i.e., (N+4)−(N+1)=3). In fact, the minimumround trip latency for link [0], referred to herein as the minimum linklatency, is N+1 clock cycles for packet-adjust=01, and becomesprogressively larger—N+2, N+3, N+4—as the packet-adjust value isincremented and advances the load pointer further ahead of the unloadpointer to packet registers flop2, flop3, flop0 respectively.

Still referring to FIG. 3D, because the loading edge of FCK1[7] occursjust prior to the flop0 sampling edge of PCK1, the minimum link latencyfor link DQ[0] is ‘N’ PCK1 cycles and occurs when the link packet-adjustvalue (RxPktAdj[7][1:0]) is ‘00’. As the packet adjust value isincremented to 01, 10, 11, the link latency increases by a correspondingnumber of PCK1 cycles to N+1, N+2, N+3.

As the exemplary timing of diagram of FIG. 3D demonstrates, differentlinks may exhibit different minimum link latencies. And yet, because thei^(th) packets on the respective data links are constituents of the samemulti-packet word retrieved from the memory device core (or issued fromthe controller core in a calibration operation), it is important tomaintain the temporal relationship between the i^(th) packets bytransferring them all into the controller core domain in response to thesame sampling edge of the core clock signal. As can be appreciated fromFIG. 3D, this “packet-alignment” operation is in effect one ofequalizing the link latency for all the signaling links, despite whattheir individual minimum latencies may be.

FIG. 3E provides an example of establishing a uniform link latency,referred to herein as the minimum system latency, across all data links.This operation may generally be extended to all signaling links,particularly if some signaling links used primarily to conveyinformation unidirectionally (e.g., command, data mask) are occasionallyused to return information to the memory controller.

Initially, the link latency (read data latency in this example) for eachdata link is determined for each setting of the packet-adjust value.This may be achieved, for example, by arranging to receive, on eachlink, a packet having a predetermined bit pattern (preceded andsucceeded by differently-patterned packets), and then counting thenumber of PCK1 cycles that transpire before the packet is received. Asan example, in one embodiment (described in further detail below) thememory device is placed in a data-loop-back mode, looping back data atthe memory-side core interface such that a data packet transmitted byone link (e.g., an odd-numbered link) is received on another (e.g., acounterpart even-numbered link) and thus enabling round-trip latencydetermination for each different packet adjust value. In anotherembodiment, a read command requesting return of a deterministic (e.g.,previously written or otherwise predictable) read data pattern is issuedto the memory device, thus enabling round-trip latency determination(from output of the read command from the controller core to theacquisition of expected data within the controller core) for each linkand for each packet adjust value. However accomplished, a set oflink-latency data is obtained, including relative link latency (readdata latency in this example) values (e.g., numbers of core clockcycles) for each packet adjustment value for each link. In the exampleshown at 323 of FIG. 3E, the link-latency data reflects the exemplarylink latencies shown in FIG. 3D for links DQ[0] and DQ[0], together withsimilar data for link DQ[0]. As shown, the link latencies for DQ[0]match those of link DQ[0] but occur at different packet adjust values(rotated by two PCK1 cycles), demonstrating that, in at least oneembodiment, the initial state of the load counter and unload counter isentirely arbitrary.

Continuing with FIG. 3E, a processor within the controller core (oralternatively, the host processor or other upstream controller) maydetermine the minimum link latency for each link at 325 (in thisexample, N+1 PCK1 cycles for the DQ[0], DQ[0] links, and N PCK1 cyclesfor link [7]), and then determine the minimum system latency based onthe worst-case (i.e., maximum) link latency at 327. In the embodimentshown, for example, the minimum system latency is determined to be themaximum of the individual link latencies which, in this case, is N+1PCK1 cycles. Thereafter, at 329, the packet adjust value for each link(RxPktAdj[i][1:0]) is programmed (e.g., within a packet alignmentcounter as described below) with the value that corresponds to theminimum system latency. Thus, in the particular example shown, thepacket adjust values for links DQ[0], DQ[0] and DQ[0] are programmed to‘01’, ‘11’ and ‘01’, respectively, to align those packet-to-coretransfers with the minimum system latency. Note in particular thatdespite the opportunity for an even lower latency setting for DQ[0](RxPktAdj[7]=‘00’), that the operation of that link is, in effect,delayed by a PCK1 cycle to achieve alignment with the slower (morelatent) links.

Having described exemplary phase-alignment, bit-alignment andpacket-alignment circuits that may be used within the drift-compensatingdeserializer and serializer circuits, it should be noted that numerousalternative circuit implementations may be used to achieve the resultsdescribed without departing from the principles set forth herein. Forexample, various types of delay circuits and other types of phaseshifting circuits may be used to generate a desired receive and transmitclock phases. Further, with respect to bit alignment, instead of theadder circuitry (277 and 345) shown in FIGS. 3A and 3F, additional shiftregister stages may be provided, with multiplexer selection of theoutputs at different points within the shift pipeline (thus effecting aselectable n*t_(bit) delay, where ‘n’ is the selectable number ofadditional shift register stages traversed, and t_(bit) is a bit-timeinterval). Similarly, with respect to packet alignment, an additionalparallel register may be provided along with a multiplexer to enableselection of different word alignments. More generally, instead of aFIFO buffer arrangement, a cycle-skip circuit that selects one ofmultiple PCK1 edges (e.g., N, N+1, N+2, N+3, N+4 as shown in FIG. 3D) totransfer data from a single packet register into the core domain.

FIGS. 3F and 3G illustrate an embodiment and timing diagram of adrift-compensating serializer 185 that may be used to implement any ofthe drift-compensating serializers shown in FIG. 2A. Like thedrift-compensating deserializer of FIG. 3A, the drift-compensatingserializer includes circuitry to perform packet alignment, bit alignmentand intra-bit timing phase adjustment, all in the reverse order relativeto the deserializer. In effect, the drift-compensating serializerpre-skews the packets of each signaling link (packet-alignment) relativeto one another, the bits of each packet (bit-alignment) and theintra-bit phase of the data-rate transmit clock signal to align the datatransmission for each link, thereby enabling the counterpart memory-sidereceive circuit to sample each bit at a desired intra-bit instant, frameeach group of bits into a packets in accordance with the packet-framingintended by the memory controller, and transfer all packets that formpart of the same multi-packet data word into the memory core domain insynchrony, all without requiring any phase memory-side timingcompensation circuitry. Accordingly, a packet-alignment FIFO 371 isloaded with a sequence of transmit data packets (Tdata[i][7:0] and thuseach an 8-bit packet in this example) in response to the controller coreclock (PCK1) and unloaded (i.e., packet popped from head of FIFO orqueue) into parallel register 367 in response to a buffer-delayedinstance (FCK1[i]) of a de-framing clock signal (TCK1[i]), therebyallowing packets from the same multi-packet word from thecontroller-core to be loaded into the controller I/O domain at differenttimes as necessary to compensate for controller-core-to-memory-corepropagation time differences over the different links. The contents ofthe parallel register 367 are loaded into a serial-output shift register365 in response to the de-framing clock signal TCK1[i] which isgenerated in the same manner as the framing clock signal RCK1[i] withinthe deserializer of FIG. 3A. That is, the de-framing clock signal isgenerated by dividing a bit-rate transmit clock signal TCK8[i] by eightin modulo-8 counter (formed by register 341 and increment logic 343),and adding a 3-bit bit adjustment value to the counter output in adder345, thereby enabling the output of the modulo-8 counter to be offset bya value that ranges from 0 to 7 and thus enabling de-framing to occur onany of the eight possible bit boundaries. The MSB of the adder output,which cycles once every eight cycles of TCK8[i], after synchronizationwith a negative going edge of the transmit clock, TCK8[i] in flop stage351, forms the de-framing clock, TCK1[i]. The de-framing clock isshifted through a sequence of three of negative-TCK8[i]-edge-triggeredflip-flops (353, 355, 357), with the outputs of the final two flopstages (357, 355) being supplied to inverting and non-inverting inputsof AND gate 359 to generate a single-TCK8[i]-cycle load pulse, LD[i],once per de-framing clock cycle. The load pulse is supplied toload-enable inputs of the flop stages within serial-out shift register365 so that, when the load pulse goes high, the contents of parallelregister 367 are loaded into serial-out shift register 365 and, half aTCK[8[i] cycle later (owing to negative-edge-triggered flop stage 361),are shifted bit by bit into output flop 363 and driven onto the DQ[i]link. As in the deserializer of FIG. 3A, an interpolator 364 (or otherclock-phase shifter) is provided to enable a calibrated intra-bit (orintra-cycle) timing offset between the transmit clock signal TCK8[i] andthe controller I/O clock, PCK8. The calibration operations applied toestablish and adjust this drift-tracking phase offset are describedbelow. As discussed in reference to the drift-compensating deserializerof FIG. 3A, in some embodiments, glitch-free starting and stopping ofthe interpolated clock, TCK8[i], is enabled by distribution of an extrapair of one-cycle-delayed copies of the PCK8[0°] and PCK8[180°]waveforms to the interpolator circuitry 364, though alternativetechniques may be used to ensure glitch-free operation.

FIG. 3G illustrates the timing relationship between the various clock,control and data signals described above. More specifically, thearbitrary phase relationship between the PCK8 and TCK8[i] domains isshown at 334 (note that only the 0° clock phase of the multi-phase PCK8clock signal is shown), along with the timing of the load pulse, LD[i]and its dependence on the bit adjust signal, TxBitAdj[i][2:0], tode-frame a given packet of data for transmission at incrementallybit-shifted positions within the serial output stream. Morespecifically, the packet of data within the parallel register istransferred to the serial-out register at different de-framing intervalsin accordance with bit adjustment value TxBitAdj [i] [2:0], thusenabling the packet boundary to be bit-wise shifted within the outgoingserial bitstream. That is, if the bit adjustment value is zero(TxBitAdj[i]=0, or 000b), the packet of data within parallel register367 is loaded into the serial-out shift register 365 at the end of thetransmission of bit 19 (an arbitrarily assigned number), and thentransmitted as bits 21-28. If TxBitAdj[i]=1, the packet is loaded intothe serial-out shift register one bit time later, at the end of thetransmission of bit 20, and then transmitted as bits 22-29. Continuing,if TxBitAdj[i]=2, 3, 4, . . . , 7, the packet from the parallel registeris loaded into the serial-out shift register a corresponding number ofbit-times later than if TxBitAdj[i]=0 (i.e., 2, 3, 4, . . . , or 7 bittimes later), and then transmitted a corresponding number of bit-timeslater as bits 23-30, 24-31, 25-32, . . . , or 28-35 within the serialbitstream.

FIG. 3H illustrates an embodiment of a FIFO-based packet-alignmentcircuit 380 that may be used to implement the packet-alignment circuit371 of FIG. 3F. The packet alignment circuit operates generally asdescribed in reference to FIGS. 3C-3E, but in the reverse direction, ineffect, establishing mis-alignment between companion packets (i.e.,those belonging to the same outgoing data word or command word) asnecessary to ensure aligned transfer into the memory-side core.Accordingly, the packet alignment circuit 380 includes a 4-deep FIFObuffer 351 having packet registers flop0-flop3 (designated in FIG. 3H byrespective outputs SEL0-SEL3) as well as a load circuit 381 (or loadpointer) and unload circuit 383 (or unload pointer) for loading andunloading the FIFO buffer. In the embodiment shown, the load circuit 381includes modulo-4 counter 384 (formed by increment logic 385 andregister 386) and 2:4 decoder (387) which function generally the same ascorresponding elements of load pointer 291 of FIG. 3C, but is clocked byPCK1 instead of FCK1[i]. The unload circuit 383 includes modulo-4counter 390 (formed by increment logic 391 and register 392) and 4:1multiplexer 395 which function generally as described in reference tocorresponding components of the unload pointer 301 of FIG. 3C, but isclocked by FCK1 [i] instead of PCK1 and includes 2-bit adder 393 toenable the load sequence to be advanced by 0, 1, 2 or 3 (zero to three)FCK1 sampling edges. By this arrangement, the packet registers of theFIFO buffer 382 are loaded in a rotating sequence in response tosuccessive edges of PCK1 and unloaded in a rotating sequence in responseto successive edges of FCK1[i], with the load-to-unload latency beingadjustable via the TxPktAdj[i][1:0] value that is added to the output ofthe modulo-4 unload counter 390. Accordingly, by retrieving transmitteddata (e.g., via loopback or write and read back) via a previouslycalibrated drift-compensating deserializer, latency values correspondingto each setting of the transmit packet adjust value may be determinedfor each signaling link; minimum link latencies may be ascertained andused to establish system link latency for controller-to-memorysignaling. Thereafter, the system link latency value may be used toprogram or otherwise establish the transmit packet adjust values foreach of the signaling links to ensure uniform alignment uponserialization and transfer to the memory-side core clock domain.

FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate embodiments of deserializer and serializercircuits, 400 and 415 respectively, that may be used to implement any ofthe deserializer and serializer circuits within the memory device ofFIG. 2A. As shown, the core memory clock, MCK1, may be used as thepacket-framing and de-framing clock without adjustment, and no otherphase-adjustment or bit-adjustment circuitry need be provided. Also,because the MCK4 signal oscillates at half the data-rate, both risingand falling edges of MCK4 (or rising edges of MCK4 and falling edges ofcomplementary clock, /MCK4 (or vice-versa)) may be used to time datatransmission and reception within the memory-side serializer anddeserializer circuits, thus effecting data-rate timing.

In the exemplary deserializer 400 embodiment of FIG. 4A, the incomingdata signal (which may bear write data, command/address information,calibration information, etc.) is clocked alternately into even-dataflop 401 and odd-data flop 403 in response to rising and falling edges,respectively, of the memory-side I/O clock, MCK4. Thereafter, datacaptured within the even-data and odd-data flops are shifted togetherinto even-data shift register 402 and odd-data shift register 404, witheach shift register having, in this 8-bit packet example, four flopstages. Once every four cycles of the MCK4 signal, after the even andodd shift registers have been loaded with a complete packet of data, arising edge of MCK1 is used to latch the packet of data (available inparallel at the outputs of the shift registers 402, 404) withinparallel-out packet register 405, thus effecting transfer of the packetto the memory core domain interface as receive data Rdata[i][7:0] (e.g.,write data, calibration data, configuration data, command/addressinformation, data-mask information, etc.).

In the exemplary serializer 415 of FIG. 4B, an eight-bit transmit datapacket, Tdata[i][7:0], is parallel-loaded into a four-stage, 2-bit-wideshift register 416 (which may be viewed as a pair of single-bit shiftregisters for even-numbered and odd-numbered bits of the packet,respectively) in response to a load pulse 430 generated once per MCK1cycle. Thereafter, the two bits at the head of the shift register (i.e.,in flop stage R01) are applied to output driver (and thus driven on tolink DQ[i]) in respective low and high phases of a given MCK4 cycle,before the next pair of bits is shifted forward for transmission in thesubsequent MCK4 cycle. As shown, flip-flop 421 is provided to ensurehold-time for the bit being provided for output during the high phase ofthe MCK4 cycle and may be omitted if sufficient hold time is otherwiseavailable.

The load pulse 430 may be generated in any number of ways, but in theembodiment shown is generated by flop 423 and AND gate 425. Morespecifically, AND gate 425 receives the output of flop 423 at aninverting input and MCK1 at a non-inverting input and thereforegenerates a pulse that extends for the first cycle of MCK4 followingeach rising edge of the core clock, MCK1. The pulse from AND gate 425 isbuffered in flop 427 to ensure sufficient hold time before beingre-timed a half MCK4 cycle later in negative-MCK4-edge-triggered flop429 to yield load pulse 430. The load pulse itself is supplied tomultiplexer stages M01, M23 and M45, thereby enabling componentregisters R01, R23 and R45 of the shift register to be parallel-loadedwith constituent bits of the packet to be serialized (i.e., bits 0, 1into R01; bits 2, 3 into R23; and bits 4, 5 into R45) while bits 6 and 7of the packet are simultaneously loaded into input-stage register R67.

In alternative embodiments, various implementation details may bechanged within the serializer and deserializer circuits of FIGS. 4A and4B. For example, instead of clocking shift registers with a data-rateclock (a half-bit-rate clock in the examples shown) to achieve 8:1serialization, a sequence of 2:1 multiplexers and flip-flop stages maybe provided select, in successive stages, alternating 4-bit portions ofan 8-bit packet in response to high and low phases of MCK1 (stage 1),alternating 2-bit portions of each 4-bit portion in response to high andlow phases of a divided-by-two instance of MCK4 (stage 2), andalternating single bits of each 2-bit portion in response to high andlow phases of MCK4 in an output stage. A similar arrangement may beemployed to perform 1:8 deserialization, combining individual bits into2-bit portions of a packet in an input stage, combining bit pairs into4-bit portions of a packet in a second stage, and then combining 4-bitportions of a packet in a third stage. Drift-compensating serializersand deserializers within the memory controller may similarly beimplemented with successive 2:1 multiplexing (or demultiplexing) stagesrather than shift registers clocked by a data-rate clock. In that case,bit adjustment may be effected by adding offset values tofrequency-divided local clocks.

Calibration

In the memory system of FIG. 2A, calibration of the clock phase, bitalignment and packet alignment circuitry within each of thedrift-compensating deserializers and serializers is carried out based ondata transmitted over the signaling link being calibrated. In oneembodiment, initial calibration operations are carried out to establishreliable operation within the drift-compensating deserializers and thenwithin the drift-compensating serializers, and thereafter a periodic (oroccasional) timing calibration operation is carried out to incrementallyadjust the calibration settings frequently enough to track memory-sidetiming drift (and more generally, system-wide timing drift). Also, inone embodiment, drift-compensating deserializer circuitry as shown, forexample, in FIG. 3A (and counterpart memory-side serializing circuitryas shown, for example, in FIG. 4B), is provided for each of theotherwise unidirectional links (e.g., control/address and data-mask),thereby permitting an identical calibration procedure to be carried outfor each signaling link. In an alternative embodiment, another returnpath from the memory device to the memory controller (e.g., a sidebandlink) may be used to calibrate a unidirectional controller-to-memorylink. In that case data transmitted from the controller via theunidirectional link may be switchably routed to the alternative returnpath for delivery to the memory controller, thus enabling the memorycontroller to determine whether the originally transmitted data wasproperly received by the memory device.

The general approach with respect to initial calibration of eachdrift-compensating deserializer and serializer is to calibrate thereceive/transmit clock phase first (adjusting RxPhAdj[i] and TxPhAdj[i])followed by bit alignment (RxBitAdj[i] and TxBitAdj[i]) and then packetalignment (RxPktAdj, TxPktAdj[i]). FIG. 5A, for example, illustrates amanner of calibrating the receive clock phase within thedrift-compensating deserializers for data links DQ0 and DQ1 (therebyensuring reliable memory-to-controller signaling), though the sameprocedure should be understood to be carried out simultaneously for allsignaling links. As calibration-support circuitry, the memory controllerincludes data-selection (multiplexing) circuitry and match circuitry foreach signaling link, as well as sources of calibration data patterns forintra-bit phase adjustment, bit alignment and word alignment. The memorydevice also includes data-selection circuitry and calibration datasources, as well as loop-back interconnections between paired links toenable data received via one signaling link to be returned to the memorycontroller via a paired counterpart link.

Continuing with FIG. 5A, the memory controller issues a calibrationcommand to the memory device over a side-band link (e.g., the sidebandlink, SL, shown in FIG. 2A) to select, via data-selectors (multiplexers)477 e and 477 o, pattern set A from calibration data source 471 as asource of calibration data to be transmitted to the memory controllerover each the DQ[0] and DQ[0] signaling links. The overall calibrationdata path for even-numbered link DQ[0] is illustrated by the shadeddata-flow from internal data calibration data path 472, throughmultiplexers 477 e and 473 e to the memory-side serializer 235 e. Theresulting serial bitstream is transmitted in response to rising andfalling edges in the differential memory I/O clock (MCK4) which occur attwice the rate of the 1.6 GHz memory I/O clock and thus yield a 3.2 Gb/stransmission on each differential link. Upon arrival at the memorycontroller, the bit sequence is provided to the phase-selectingdeserializer 192 e and bit/packet alignment circuitry 194 e where it issampled and deserialized (framed into a packet) in response to initialphases of the receive clock, RCK8[i] and framing clock signal, RCK1[i](e.g., RxPhAdj[i]=000000b and RxBitAdj[i]=000b), and packet-aligned inaccordance with an initial packet adjustment value (RxPktAdj[i]=00b). Inone embodiment, the data sequence that forms pattern set A ispredetermined or at least predictable (e.g., deterministicallygenerated) so that the received data may be provided to a match circuit453 e to determine whether the received data matches the expectedsequence. In one implementation, this evaluation is carried out withrespect to the sequence of bits only, so that the match/mismatchdetermination is dependent only on whether the individual bits aresampled without error and without regard to any bit or packetmisalignment. Calibration data flows simultaneously within the odd andeven numbered signaling links through parallel calibration paths. Thus,calibration data for the odd-numbered link shown (DQ[0]) progressesthrough I/O circuitry and calibration-support circuitry for theodd-numbered link (477 o, 473 o, 235 o, 192 o, 194 o) to arrive at matchcircuit 453 o.

FIG. 5B illustrates a particular embodiment the intra-bit clock-phasearrangement of FIG. 5A without detail regarding the various dataselection paths. As shown, a pseudo-random bit-sequence (PRBS) circuit501 generates, as pattern set A, a deterministic bit pattern which isserialized (235) for transmission over the signaling link (DQ[i]) andreceived within the drift-compensating deserializer 186. A state machine505 (or bit sequencer or other control logic) within the match circuit453 initially asserts a seed-enable signal (“Seed”) to a controller-sidePRBS circuit 503 implemented in the same manner (i.e., calculating thesame PRBS polynomial) as the memory-side PRBS circuit 501, thus enablingthe memory-side and controller-side PRBS circuits to be synchronized. Ifthe incoming data sequence is properly sampled by the initial receiveclock phase, the output of the controller-side PRBS circuit will, afterseeding (i.e., shifting into the PRBS register chain), match the outputof the memory-side PRBS as it appears at the controller-side PRBS input.Accordingly, if data reception is error-free, the state machine maydeassert the seed signal and the now-seeded controller-side PRBS outputwill continue to match, bit for bit, the received data sequencecorresponding to pattern set A. By this arrangement, the state machine505 may assess a pass/fail status for the initial receive clock phase(e.g., selected by RxPhAdj[i]=000000b) according to whether thecontroller-side PRBS output matches the transmitted data sequence.Thereafter, the receive clock phase may be advanced (e.g., incrementallyor following a binary or other search pattern) and proper data receptionre-tested at the new clock phase. By determining the pass-fail boundary(i.e., adjacent clock phases that yield passing and failing testresults) at either end of a data eye or at the close of one data eye andthe opening of the succeeding data eye, a final clock phase may beselected from among a range of passing clock phases, for example as themedian between the two pass-fail boundaries or at a specific offset fromone of the boundaries, potentially selected according to eye width. FIG.5C demonstrates this approach, showing an exemplary relationship betweenthe 48 clock phases selected by an exemplary phase selector (i.e., threebits to select two of six clock phases, three bits to interpolatebetween the selected clock-phase pair) and pass-fail boundaries relativeto a data-eye schmoo (i.e., plot of successive data eyes overlaid uponone another). In the example shown, failing clock phases forphase-adjustment settings 0-10 and 38-47, and passing phase-adjustmentsettings from 11 to 37. Accordingly, a final receive clock phase may beselected as the average or median of the pass/fail boundaries, in thiscase, a phase adjustment value of 24 ((10+38)/2 or (11+37)/2).Alternatively, the difference between the pass-fail boundaries may beused as a measure of the unit-interval ((37−11)×7.5°=202.5°) and thusused to select between a limited number of edge-to-center offsets,occasionally referred to herein as the half-UI offset (though notnecessarily exactly half the unit-interval). This approach enables rapidswitching between clock phases aligned with the pass/fail boundary andthe calibrated sampling point (the nominal data-eye midpoint). Such“phase jumping” is particularly useful for speeding periodic timingcalibration operations. For example, in one embodiment, discussed below,periodic timing calibration is carried out by phase-jumping from thereceive clock phase to the pass-fail-boundary clock phase (the “boundaryphase”) to determine whether the pass-fail boundary has drifted sincethe last timing calibration operation. If so, the boundary phase isincremented or decremented in the direction of the drift. After updatingthe boundary phase, a fixed phase jump is performed, relative to theupdated boundary phase, to arrive at a correspondingly updated(incremented or decremented) receive clock phase, completing theperiodic timing calibration with respect to the receive clock phase.

In one embodiment, periodic timing calibration is hidden undermemory-side maintenance operations (e.g., DRAM refresh) or carried outin potentially brief idle intervals and thus involves a relatively brieftest pattern transmission to enable detection of drift of the pass-failboundary. Because the brief test pattern may include only a limitednumber of the spectral components present in a more random data sequence(as represented by a longer pseudo-random bit sequence), a more opendata eye (having different pass/fail boundaries) may be perceived duringperiodic timing calibration (PTC) than during initial calibration. Inone embodiment, the PTC pass-fail boundary is determined after initialcalibration of the receive clock and thereafter used to detect drift(e.g., by retesting the boundary phase). As the PTC boundary clock phaseis incremented and decremented in response to drift, the receive clockphase is correspondingly incremented and decremented, therebymaintaining the receive clock phase at a constant offset with respect tothe PTC fail boundary and compensating for system drift. This operationis illustrated conceptually in FIG. 5D, which shows the larger data eyethat results from the spectrally-limited PCT test pattern overlaid onthe smaller data eye that results from the more spectrally-completeinitial calibration test pattern, and the offset between the PTCboundary phase and the receive clock phase. A similar operation may becarried out following transmit phase calibration (described below),determining a PTC boundary phase together with a finely tuned transmitclock phase and incrementing and decrementing those clock phases in lockstep during periodic transmit timing calibration.

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate an exemplary bit-alignment (orpacket-framing) stage of the drift-compensating deserializercalibration. As with receive-clock calibration, the bit-alignmentoperation begins with a side-band command from the memory controller tothe memory device to begin outputting a predetermined calibration datapattern; in this case, pattern set B: a framing pattern formed by an8-bit packet with a solitary ‘1’ bit in a predetermined bit position.The data transmission path is essentially the same as in FIG. 5A (shownby the gray outline passing through memory-side multiplexer stages,serializer, data link, controller-side deserializer and bit/packetalignment circuit to arrive at match circuitry 453), but the output ofthe match circuit for each link adjusts the bit alignment value(RxBitAdj[i]) delivered to the bit/packet alignment circuit instead ofthe interpolated clock phase as in the receive clock calibrationoperation of FIG. 5A. FIG. 6B illustrates the overall bit-alignmentoperation as performed, for example, by state machine 505 within thematch circuitry 453. As shown, the state machine evaluates the incomingpackets at an initial framing value (e.g., BitAdj=000) to determinewhether the logic ‘1’ bit appears in the intended bit position withinthe packet. If not, the state machine determines the bit offset betweenthe actual logic ‘1’ bit position and the desired ‘1’ bit position, andadjusts the bit adjust value accordingly. In the first of twobit-misalignment (or packet-framing error) examples shown in FIG. 6B,the logic ‘1’ bit is framed in bit position seven (0000 0001b) insteadof bit position zero (1000 0000b) as originally transmitted. In thatcase, the finite state machine determines a bit displacement of one bitand sets the bit adjustment value accordingly to RxBitAdj[i]=001b, thuseffecting a 1-bit right-shift of the logic ‘1’ within the incoming bitsequence (or a 1-bit left-shift in framing boundary) to position thelogic ‘1’ bit at the correct bit position (bit position zero) andthereby establish the intended packet-to-packet framing. In the secondof two misalignment examples, the logic appears at bit position two, sothat a bit adjustment of six (RxBitAdj[i]=110) is applied to effect theintended packet framing boundary.

Still referring to FIG. 6B and FIG. 3A, it can be seen that bitalignment is effected by delaying the framing clock relative to the coreclock domain so that, depending on the bit-shift required (inconjunction with phase-delay used to establish the desired phasing ofthe receive clock), a given packet may be ready for transfer to the coreclock domain at different times (i.e., in response to different edges ofthe core clock signal). Thus, packets that form part of the samemulti-packet value retrieved from the memory core may, withoutalignment, be transferred into the core domain in response to differentcore clock cycles. To avoid this consequence, the packet alignmentoperation shown in FIG. 6C is carried out to determine a packet latencyvalue that, when applied to the packet alignment circuits for thevarious links, aligns the packets that form part of the originalmulti-packet value retrieved from the memory core for simultaneoustransfer into the controller-core clock domain. As with phase and bitalignment, the packet-alignment calibration begins with a command fromthe memory controller to the memory device to select a calibration datasource (pattern set C) that enables distinction between each sequence offour packets. For example, in one embodiment, pattern set C is afour-packet sequence that includes a packet with one or more ‘1’ bits(“P1”), followed by three zero-valued packets (“P0”). Accordingly, statemachine 505 may determine the latency in the P1 packet receipt relativeto those of other links, for example, by outputting the local packetlatency to a logic circuit that receives like signals for the otherlinks and returns a “relative latency” value indicative of the localpacket latency relative to that of the most latent link. The statemachine 505 responds by delaying the I/O-to-core packet transfer time inaccordance with the relative latency indication and thereby match the P1transfer time of the most latent link such that P1 packets aretransferred to the core domain simultaneously (i.e. in response to thesame PCK1 edge) for all links.

After calibrating the receive clock phase, bit alignment and packetalignment within the drift-compensating deserializers, similaroperations are carried out to calibrate the transmit clock phase, bitalignment and packet alignment within the drift-compensatingserializers. In general, these operations are carried out bytransmitting calibration data from the memory controller to the memorydevice via the drift-compensating serializer being calibrated, thenreceiving the transmitted calibration data back from the memory devicevia a previously calibrated drift-compensated deserializer. Morespecifically, in one embodiment, a data loopback path is provided withinthe memory device to enable calibration data transmitted by the memorycontroller to be returned to the memory controller without burdening thememory core. This arrangement speeds the calibration data return andenables timing calibration operations to be partly or completely hiddenunder (i.e., carried out concurrently with) memory refresh or otheroverhead operations within the memory core. In an alternativeembodiment, write and read-back operations may be used to establishfull-loop testing of the data links (thus avoiding the need for loopbackpaths), but such arrangement complicates the overall calibrationprocedure in that the command path generally needs to be madeoperational before write and read operations can be commenced. Though itis possible to establish reliable command path signaling in advance ofdata path calibration (e.g., through calibration operations coordinatedover the side-band link; sending commands via the command path andevaluating whether the commands were properly received), thiscomplication is avoided through the loopback approach.

FIGS. 7A, 7B and 8A-8C illustrate exemplary serializer calibrationprocedures that rely upon cross-coupled loopback paths betweenrespective pairs of signaling links within the memory device. Ingeneral, the serializer calibration procedure follows the same sequenceas the deserializer calibration, starting with clock phase adjustment,followed by bit alignment (packet framing) and then finally inter-linkpacket alignment.

FIG. 7A illustrates calibration data flow during calibration of thetransmit clock phase within a drift-compensating deserializer.Initially, a calibration data source is selected via multiplexer 451 eand serialized within drift-compensating serializer (191 e, 193 e) usinginitial packet-alignment, bit-alignment and transmit-phase values (e.g.,all values zero). The data is conveyed via an even numbered signalinglink (DQ[0] in this example), received and packetized within thecounterpart memory-side deserializer 236 e, then routed via loopbackpath 240 and multiplexer 473 o, to the data transmission circuitry andserializer for the counterpart link of the even/odd link pair (i.e.,DQ[0]). Continuing, the data is received within thepreviously-calibrated drift-compensating deserializer (192 o, 194 o) forthe odd-numbered link and provided to match circuitry 453 o which, inturn, renders a pass-fail determination for the transmit clock phaseunder test. FIG. 7B illustrates the overall flow of calibration datafrom source to destination. More specifically, in the example shown, acalibration data sequence is sourced by a controller-side PRBS generator571 and transmitted to the memory device using the transmit phase adjustsetting (TxPhAdj[i]) under test. Upon receipt within the memory device,the calibration data sequence is looped back to the memory controllerthrough a switchably-formed loopback path (572), received within thememory controller and then delivered to a controller-side PRBS checkercircuit 503. In the particular embodiment shown, the same PRBS checkercircuit 503 is employed during transmit and receive calibration, thoughseparate (or at least differently configured) checker circuits may beused in alternative embodiments. Because the memory-to-controllertransfer has been previously calibrated, the pass or fail result for thetransmit clock phase under test may be assumed to result from improperphase alignment between the controller-side transmit clock and theuncompensated memory-side receive clock signal. Accordingly, byincrementing transmit clock phase through a linear (or binary-search orother search) sequence, pass-fail boundaries for the transmit clockphase may be identified, and a corresponding transmit clock phaseselected as the midpoint between those boundaries, or as a predeterminedoffset from one of the boundaries (e.g., based on the range of clockphases between the pass-fail boundaries). After the transmit clock phasefor each of the even numbered signaling links is completed, the memorycontroller issues a command via the sideband link to switch themultiplexing arrangement to enable data transmitted by the odd-numberedsignaling links to be looped back via the even-numbered signaling links(i.e., including loop back path 242 and multiplexer 473 e), and toenable the match circuitry within the even numbered signaling links toadjust the phase of the odd-link transmit clocks.

After the even and odd transmit clock phases have been calibrated, thememory controller issues another sideband link command to re-establishthe memory-side loopback path between the even-link deserializer 236 eand the odd-link serializer 235 o in preparation for a bit alignment andpacket alignment operations that correspond to those carried out for thedrift-compensating deserializer. This arrangement is shown in FIGS. 8A,8B and 8C showing the overall data flow path (FIG. 8A), and thebit-alignment signals (FIG. 8B) and packet-alignment signals (FIG. 8C)provided to the bit/packet alignment circuit within the even loopsignaling path. After bit/packet alignment within the even-numberedsignaling links is completed, the memory-device data multiplexers areswitched again (e.g., in response to a sideband link command from thememory controller) to enable calibration of the bit/packet alignmentwithin the odd-numbered signaling links.

Periodic Timing Calibration

After phase, bit and packet alignment operations are completed for thedrift-compensating serializer/deserializer circuits in the initialtiming calibration effort, active memory operations may be commencedwith full data-rate data transfer between the memory device and memorycontroller. As discussed above, the lack of drift-compensation circuitrywithin the memory device means that the initial phase calibrations mayrelatively quickly drift away from desired alignments in response tochanges in temperature and voltage (or other environmental factors) andthus require relatively frequent correction. Periodic or occasionaltiming calibration operations are carried out to provide thiscorrection.

FIGS. 9A and 9B illustrate exemplary sequences of operations used toperiodically calibrate the drift-compensating serializers anddrift-compensating deserializers, respectively. Referring first to FIG.9A, before transmitting calibration data, the memory controller issues aloopback-enable command via the now-calibrated command path to establishlooped-back flow from even- to odd-numbered signaling links and alsoshifts the phase of the transmit clock in response to a clock selectionsignal (EdgeClkSel) to match the passing clock phase recorded for apass/fail boundary. At this point, the memory controller transmits dataselected from pattern source F, a predictable or predetermined sequenceof values that may be transmitted a limited number of times (e.g., onepacket) in response to the boundary-phase transmit clock signal. Thepattern source is received within a counterpart deserializer of thememory device, looped back to the serializer for the odd-numbered linkof the link-pair under test (occurring in all link pairs simultaneously)and then re-transmitted to the memory controller where it is receivedwithin the drift-compensating deserializer (using the previouslycalibrated receive clock phase) and supplied to match circuit 473 o forcomparison with the expected value. If a pattern mismatch is detected atthis point, the memory controller may infer that the pass/fail boundaryhas drifted in the direction of the passing phase of the pass/failboundary and thus increments the clock phase recorded for the pass/failboundary value in a direction that tracks the phase drift. Thereafter,by phase-jumping by a predetermined offset relative to the now-shiftedpass/fail boundary, an incremented (adjusted) transmit clock phase iseffected, compensating for the drift. If a pattern match is detected forthe previously confirmed pass-phase of the pass/fail boundary, thepreviously confirmed fail-phase may be tested (repeating thetransmission of the data pattern F using the decremented boundary phase)to determine if the controller-to-memory phase has drifted in theopposite direction. If the fail-phase now passes, drift in thefail-boundary direction is inferred, and the clock phase recorded forthe pass/fail boundary is decremented to track the phase drift.Thereafter, by phase-jumping by a predetermined offset to thenow-decremented pass/fail boundary, a decremented (adjusted) transmitclock phase is effected, compensating for the drift. If pattern match isdetected in the pass-boundary phase and pattern mismatch is detected inthe fail-boundary phase, the pass/fail boundary is deemed not to havedrifted since the last calibration operation and thus no change in thephase adjust values for the pass/fail boundary or the transmit clockphase is recorded.

While the above-described calibration approach enables a phaseincrement, decrement or hold during each calibration update, in analternative embodiment, each calibration operation may decrement orincrement (no hold state) the clock phase being calibrated, thuspotentially suffering some clock dithering in return for the benefit ofa simpler control circuit (e.g., state machine) implementation. In suchan embodiment, the results of several calibration operations may beaccumulated and then applied to determine a phase update according tomajority vote. In either case, only a single phase jump need be madebetween the boundary and sampling clock phases.

After the periodic timing calibration of the controller-side transmitclock phases is completed for the even-numbered signaling links, thememory controller issues a calibration command via the CA links toreverse the data multiplexing direction and the same sequence ofcalibration operations is carried out with respect to the odd numberedlinks.

After completion of the periodic timing calibration operations for theeven-link and odd-link transmit clock phases, corresponding periodictiming calibration operations are carried out as shown in FIG. 9B toadjust the even-link and odd-link receive clock phases. In oneembodiment, the receive clock calibration follows on the heels of thetransmit clock phase adjustment so that the memory-side loopback pathfrom odd-link deserializer to even-link serializer is alreadyestablished. Otherwise, the memory controller may issue a command viathe command path to establish that loopback path. In either case, oncethe odd-to-even loopback path is established, the memory controllerbegins transmitting pattern F data (or other periodic timing calibrationdata) via the odd-numbered signaling link (i.e., via multiplexer 451 o,through packet/bit alignment circuit 193 o and phase-shifting serializer191 o) and receives the looped-back data via the even-link deserializer.As with the transmit clock, the receive clock phase is offset to thepreviously recorded pass/fail boundary during the periodic timingcalibration to determine whether pass/fail boundary has moved and, ifso, in which direction. That is, if the pass-boundary phase still yieldsa passing result, but the fail-boundary phase now yields a passingresult instead of a failing result, the bit adjustment values for thepass-fail boundary are shifted in the direction of the fail-boundaryphase to counteract the phase drift, yielding a corresponding shift inthe receive clock phase due to the fixed phase offset maintained betweenthe now-shifted pass/fail boundary and the receive clock. If thepass-boundary phase yields a failing result, the bit adjustment valuefor the pass-fail boundary is shifted in the direction of thepass-boundary phase, yielding a corresponding shift in the receive clockphase to counteract the phase drift. If there is no movement in thepass/fail boundary, the receive clock phase is left without change. Asdiscussed in regard to the transmit clock phase, in an alternativeembodiment, the receive clock phase may be incremented or decremented ineach update (i.e., no hold state). After periodic timing calibration iscompleted for the even-numbered-link receive clocks, the memorycontroller issues a command to the memory device to reverse the dataloopback connection (to enable data transmitted by the even-numberedsignaling links to be looped back via the odd-numbered signaling links)and thus enable the same periodic timing calibration sequence to becarried out for the odd-numbered-link receive clocks.

Still referring to FIGS. 9A and 9B, in an alternative embodiment,instead of using a loopback arrangement for transmit timing calibration,memory write and read back operations (including operations directed topredetermined registers rather than the core storage array) may becarried out to effect periodic calibration (adjustment) of the transmitclock phase. Similarly, memory read operations and/ormemory-to-controller pattern transmission (i.e., as described inreference to FIG. 6A) may be used to periodically calibrate (adjust) thereceive clock phase. In such embodiments, loopback circuitry may bepartly or wholly omitted and all links may potentially be calibratedsimultaneously rather than sequentially calibrating the even- andodd-numbered links of the various link pairs. In either case, the samephase, bit and packet alignment values to enable link-by-link driftcompensation may be maintained within the controller-side calibrationcircuitry as described above.

In one embodiment, the bit adjustment values maintained by thecontroller-side calibration circuitry are maintained within an up/downalignment counter to enable overflow (or underflow) in the phaseadjustment value to carry (or borrow) to the bit adjustment value and,likewise, to enable overflow/underflow in the bit adjustment value tocarry to/borrow from the packet adjustment value. This arrangement isshown in FIG. 10A in an alignment-counter embodiment (551) thatcorresponds to the six-bit phase adjustment circuitry described inreference to FIGS. 3A and 3C. That is, only 48 of the 64 possible phaseadjust values are used (i.e., the upper three phase adjust bits are usedto select one of six possible pairs clock phases thus leaving twophase-selection values unused and therefore sixteen total phase-adjustvalues unused) so that circuitry to effect modulo 48 counting (i.e.,increment from 47 to 0 and decrement from 0 to 47) for the phase-adjustfield 553 is provided within the phase counter. Accordingly, when aphase adjust value of 47 is incremented, the resulting rollover producesa carry to the bit adjust field 555, in effect advancing the phase ofthe clock from the most latent edge within a given bit time, to theleast latent (most advanced) edge within the more latent bit time.Similarly, upon advancing the phase to the point that the phase adjustfield has reached a maximum count (47) and the bit adjust field has alsoreached a maximum count (7), a subsequent increment in the clock edgecrosses a packet boundary, so that the phase adjust value and bit adjustvalue are effectively reset to zero and the packet adjust field 557incremented, thereby selecting the most advanced clock phase in thefirst bit time within the more latent packet interval. Similar underflowoccurs, borrowing from (decrementing) the bit adjust value in responseto an underflowing phase adjust value (decrement from 0 to 47), andborrowing from the packet adjust value in response to an underflowingbit adjust value.

Still referring to FIG. 10A, the alignment counter 551 includes inputsto receive an increment/decrement signal (“inc/dec”), load signal(“load”) and an update signal (“update”), as well as a parallel port toenable an alignment count value (i.e., a 12-bit count value in theembodiment shown) to be loaded into the counter. In one embodiment, theincrement/decrement signal is applied, during periodic timingcalibration and in response to an triggering edge of the update signal,to increment or decrement the alignment count (the counter content). Theload signal is asserted during initial calibration to enable analignment value determined during initial calibration (e.g., a median orother statistical center point between eye edges determined by aprocessor or other circuitry within the memory controller core) to beloaded into the alignment counter.

FIG. 10B illustrates a circuit arrangement that may be employed duringperiodic timing calibration to update alignment counters for each of thetransmit and receive clock phases for an odd/even signaling link pair;DQ[0] and DQ[0] in this example. As shown, two alignment counters areprovided for each of the four clock phases; four alignment counters perlink and therefore eight alignment counters for the link pair (551_(Tx0), 551 _(Tb0), 551 _(Rx0), 5515 _(Rb0), 551 _(Tx1), 551 _(Tb1), 551_(Rx1), 551 _(Rb1)). Referring to link DQ[0], for example (link DQ[0] isidentically implemented), a transmit-clock alignment counter 551 _(Tx0)is provided to control the transmit clock phase (including bit andpacket alignment), while a transmit-boundary alignment counter 551_(Tb0) is provided to control (and record) the corresponding PTCboundary phase (i.e., a transmit clock phase determined to sit at thepass/fail boundary when a spectrally-limited PTC test pattern isapplied). Similarly, a receive-clock alignment counter 551 _(Rx0) isprovided to control the receive clock phase, and a receive-boundaryalignment counter 551 _(Rb0) is provided to control (and record) thecorresponding PTC boundary phase (i.e., a receive clock phase determinedto sit at the pass/fail boundary when the PTC test pattern is applied).

In the embodiment shown, each of the alignment counters (collectively,551) is initialized during the above-described initial calibrationsequence. In one implementation, for example, the alignment counters forthe clock phases are iteratively parallel-loaded by controller-corecircuitry until a final calibrated clock phase is determined for eachlink. Thereafter, the alignment counters for the PTC boundary phases maysimilarly be iteratively parallel-loaded by controller-core circuitryuntil a final boundary phase corresponding to a pass-fail boundary(determined in response to spectrally-limited PTC test pattern) isdetermined for each link.

Continuing with FIG. 10B, a multiplexer is provided in connection witheach clock-phase/boundary-phase pair of alignment counters (as shown at575) to select the alignment count from either the clock-phase alignmentcounter or the boundary-phase alignment counter to be provided to thecorresponding drift-compensating serializer 185 ₀/185 ₁ ordrift-compensating deserializer 186 ₀/186 ₁. The calibration-clockselect signal (CalClkSel) described above is provided to control thealignment-count selection. In the particular example shown, thecalibration-clock select signal is a 4-bit signal, with each bit beingsupplied to a respective one of the multiplexers 575 for the four pairsof alignment counters, thereby enabling selection of either theboundary-phase (for PTC) or the clock-phase (for live datatransmission/reception) for the deserializer and serializer of both datalinks. As shown, a state machine 571 (which may be the same, or at leasta part of the finite state machines described above in connection withperiodic and/or initial timing calibration) also receives thecalibration-clock select signal, as well as the output of a comparecircuit 573 (e.g., part of the match circuits described above).Referring to FIG. 10C (an exemplary state diagram for state machine 571)and FIG. 10B, so long as all the calibration-clock select bits remaindeasserted, the state machine remains in an operational mode 581 andoutputs a pair of data select signals to multiplexers 576 (e.g.,corresponding generally to data selection multiplexers described abovein reference to the initial and periodic timing calibration operations)to select core data lanes, Tdata[0] [7:0] and Tdata[1][7:0], to sourcethe transmit data TxD[0] and TxD[1] delivered to the DQ[0] and DQ[0]serializers (185 ₀, 185 ₁), respectively. If any one of thecalibration-clock select bits is asserted (i.e., CalClkSel>0000b), thestate machine transitions to a periodic timing calibration (PTC) mode583 in which the PTC test pattern is selected (via multiplexers 576) asthe source of transmit data delivered to the link serializers 185 ₀/185₁ and also issuing a control signal to multiplexer 574 to select theoutput of deserializer 186 ₀ or deserializer 186 ₁ for evaluation,according to the link under calibration. That is, if either of the twoCalClkSel bits corresponding to link DQ[0] is asserted, the statemachine selects data from the DQ[0] deserializer (i.e., RxD[1]) to besupplied to the compare circuit 573. Otherwise, data from the DQ[0]deserializer (RxD[[0]) is supplied to the compare circuit. After the PTCtest pattern has been transmitted by the link serializer, received bythe link deserializer and compared with the expected value within thecompare circuit, the state machine transitions to either a clock-phaseincrement state 585 or a clock-phase decrement state 587 according towhether the comparison result indicates a pass or fail condition,respectively (although the correspondence between increment/decrementand pass/fail may be inverted as circumstances dictate). In theincrement state, the state machine raises the increment/decrementoutput, “inc/dec,” to indicate an increment operation and asserts theupdate signal (shown in FIG. 10A, but omitted from 10B to avoidobscuring the circuit elements shown) to enable the correspondingboundary-phase and clock-phase clock counters to be incremented.Similarly, in the decrement state, the state machine lowers theincrement/decrement output to specify a decrement operation and assertsthe update signal to enable the CalClkSel-selected pair of alignmentcounters to be decremented. By this operation, the clock phases andcorresponding PTC boundary phases loaded into the alignment counters atinitial calibration are incremented and decremented together, using thetiming drift information indicated by movement of the PTC boundary phaseto adjust the sampling and transmit clocks for each of the signalinglinks.

Clock-Stopped Low Power Mode

FIG. 11A illustrates an exemplary clocking arrangement used within theembodiment of FIG. 2A, explicitly showing the clock stop logic 601 andclock buffer 603 for the controller I/O clock (PCK8) and the clock stoplogic 605 and clock buffer 607 for the data-rate system clock (PCK4)forwarded to the memory device. Referring to detail view 610 of the PCK4clock-stop logic 605, a clock-enable signal (ENPCK4) is asserted anddeasserted (logic high and low, respectively, in this example) bypower-mode logic within the controller core to enable and disable (orstart and stop) the PCK4 clock. In one embodiment, the power-mode logicis clocked by the controller core clock, PCK1, so that, when asserted ordeasserted, the clock-enable signal remains asserted or deasserted foran integer number of PCK1 cycles. This arrangement ensures that, as theclock-enable signal is lowered to establish a clock-stopped low powermode and then later raised to restart the clock, the phase relationshipbetween the controller core clock (PCK1) and memory core clock (MCK1) ismaintained, thereby preserving the bit alignment and packet alignmentestablished during initial calibration even through clock stop andrestart. Note that in this particular example, the controller core andmemory core are clocked at the same rate. In alternative embodiments,the controller core and memory core may be clocked at different rates(and thus drive serialization and deserialization pipelines of differentdepth). In that case, the clock stop interval may be limited to aninteger number of the core clock signal having the longest period. Forexample, if the controller core clock rate is increased to 800 MHz, butthe memory core clock rate remains at 400 MHz, the clock stop intervalmay be constrained to be an integer number of memory core clock cycles(2.5 nS in this example), thus ensuring that the phase between thecontroller core clock and memory core clock is maintained.

FIG. 11B is an exemplary timing diagram of the clock-stop (or clockpause) operation of the FIG. 11A clocking architecture. The waveformsdepicted include the memory controller and memory device core clocks,PCK1 and MCK1, as well as the system clock, PCK4, and a version of thesystem clock that exists internally to the clock generation circuitPCK4i. Also depicted are the clock-enable signal, ENPCK4 and a re-timedversion of the clock-enable signal, ENPCK4r.

In essence, the clock-enable signal is used to gate the internal PCK4iclock and thus to either enable or disable toggling of the PCK4 systemclock. Because the controller core clock domain and the system clockdomain are permitted to have an arbitrary phase offset relative to oneanother (and the clock-enable signal may have an arbitrary phase offsetrelative to an edge of PCK1), the clock-enable signal may rise or fallduring any state of the PCK4i clock and thus, if applied directly togate the system clock, may gate the clock off or on during a logic-highstate of the PCK4i clock and thereby yield undesirable runt (i.e.,shortened) pulses on the system clock line. This consequence (runt pulsegeneration) is avoided within the clock-stop logic of FIG. 11A byincluding re-timing logic 611 (shown in detail view 610) that re-timesthe core-domain clock-enable signal (ENPCK4) into the PCK4i clock domainwhile maintaining a fixed phase offset between rising and falling edgesof the re-timed clock-enable signal (ENPCK4r) and the controller coreclock. More specifically, in the embodiment shown, the system clock isgated on or off only during the logic-low phase of the PCK4i clock sothat no runt pulses are generated, and yet the time interval betweendeassertion and assertion of the re-timed clock-enable signal ismaintained as an integer-number of core clock cycles, thereby preservingthe calibration-compensated phase relationship between the memory coreclock and controller core clock.

Continuing with FIGS. 11A and 11B, the re-timed clock-enable signal isANDed with PCK4i in gate 613, and thus, when deasserted, blocks a numberof pulses that correspond to an integer number of cycles of thecontroller core clock (PCK1) from appearing in the PCK4 waveform. Bythis operation, PCK4 is gated-off (suppressed; prevented from toggling)and therefore stops cleanly and remains stopped for an interval thatcorresponds to an integer number of PCK1 cycles (one cycle in thisexample). Because PCK4 is received within the memory device andpropagated through an open-loop clock driving circuit (e.g., formed bybuffers 223 and 229) to yield (without frequency change) the data-rateclock signal, MCK4, and ultimately the memory-side transmit and receiveclocks, the clean stoppage (or pausing) of PCK4 yields a correspondinglyclean stoppage of those clocks as well, thereby cleanly suspendingoperation of the memory-side serializers and deserializers. Operation ofthe counterpart controller-side deserializers and serializers is alsocleanly suspended by stoppage of the controller-side I/O clock withinclock-stop logic 601.

In one embodiment, memory-side divider circuit 225 is implemented by a4-state, modulo-4 counter (e.g., including increment logic 616 and stateregister 621 as shown at 614) in which the most significant bit togglesafter every two cycles of the MCK4 clock and thus is output as thememory-side core clock, MCK1. Noting that the modulo-4 counter maygenerally power up in any of the four states shown at the counter output(with MSB outlined), the phase-relationship between MCK1 and thecontroller core clock, PCK1, may thus take on an arbitrary one of fourinitial phase offsets that are phase-spaced by a cycle of the MCK4signal and thus two bit times. In the embodiment of FIGS. 2A (and 11A),this initial phase relationship between PCK1 and MCK4, whatever it maybe, is accounted for in the initial calibration of the bit adjustmentand packet adjustment values within the drift-compensating serializersand deserializers. Because PCK1 continues to toggle during stoppage ofthe PCK4/MCK4 signal, any stoppage of PCK4/MCK4 that does not suppress anumber of PCK4 pulses equal to the PCK4-to-PCK1 clock ratio (4 in thisexample) will change the phase relationship between PCK1 and MCK1 uponclock re-start, and thus result in loss of bit and packetsynchronization relative to the controller-core clock domain. On theother hand, by cleanly stopping PCK4 for an integer number of PCK1cycles, the number of suppressed PCK4 (and thus MCK4) pulses is ensuredto equal the PCK4 to PCK1 clock ratio and thus will maintain thePCK1-to-MCK1 phase relationship to which the initial calibrationsettings are aligned and thus enable properly framed and packet-aligneddata to be transferred to the controller core domain without error onclock restart. This result is illustrated in FIG. 11B by the state ofthe modulo-2 counter (00, 01, 10, 11, 00, . . . ) in conjunction withedges of MCK4 and showing that suppression of N*(PCK4-to-PCK1 ratio) ofPCK4 clock pulses during the clock-stop interval preserves the PCK1 toMCK1 phase relationship upon clock re-start denoting multiplication).

FIGS. 11C and 11D illustrate a more detailed embodiment of thesystem-clock clock-stop logic 605 and corresponding timing diagram. Theclock-stop logic includes a logic AND gate 613 that corresponds to gate613 of FIG. 11A, as well as re-timing logic formed by flip-flops 631,633, 635, 637, 639, 641, 645 and 647, logic elements 632, 634 and 636,and multiplexers 638 and 643. As discussed, the re-timing circuitryserves to re-time the clock-enable signal from the controller core,ENPCK4, into the domain of system clock PCK4. An initial step in thisoperation is to sample the clock-enable signal with the core clocksignal and thus align any transition within ENPCK4 with a transition ofthe core clock signal and ensure that a signal representative of theclock-enable signal enable signal (i.e., the clock-enable sample) isheld steady for at least one core-clock cycle. Further, a one-timeload-skip operation is performed at system initialization (in responseto a load-skip signal (LD-SKIP)) to determine the phase of the PCK1signal with respect to a same-frequency clock signal generated in thePCK4 domain and referred to as PCK4c. More specifically, when load-skipis raised, multiplexer 638 passes the PCK4c to the input of flop stage639, thereby enabling PCK4c to be sampled by the ensuing rising edge ofPCK1. The output of flop stage 639, referred to herein as the skipsignal, is latched by the deassertion of load-skip, and will be logic‘1’ or ‘0’ depending on whether PCK4c was high or low, respectively, atthe PCK1 rising edge. Because the phase relationship between PCK4c andPCK1 remains unchanged during system operation, load-skip need only beasserted once, at power up (or system reset) to resolve the state of theskip signal.

Continuing, the clock enable signal ENPCK4 is sampled by flop stage 637in response to a rising edge of PCK1 to generate arising-PCK1-edge-aligned clock-enable signal, ENPCK4a, that is ensuredto remain in the same state for an integer number of PCK1 cycles.ENPCK4a is itself sampled in flop 641 in response to the succeedingfalling PCK1 edge to generate negative-PCK1-edge aligned clock-enablesignal, ENPCK4b, also ensured to remain in the same state for an integernumber of PCK1 cycles. As shown in FIG. 11D, the two PCK1-alignedclock-enable signals, ENPCK4a and ENPCK4b, represent instances of aPCK1-aligned clock-enable signal that are valid over the same timeinterval but in alternative circumstances; in one case when the skipsignal is high (ENPCK4a) and in the other case when the skip signal islow (ENPCK4b). Accordingly, by selecting between the two PCK1-alignedclock-enable signals in multiplexer 643 according to the state of theskip signal, a PCK1-aligned clock-enable signal having the same startand stop time is selected and output to re-timing flop stage 645 ineither case. Further, the selected PCK1-aligned clock-enable signal isensured to span a rising edge of a quadrature clock signal PCK4d (i.e.,a clock signal having the same frequency as PCK1 and PCK4c, but aquadrature phase relationship with respect to PCK4c) supplied to thetrigger input of the re-timing flop stage 645. Finally, because eachedge of PCK4d is generated in response to a negative going edge ofdata-rate clock PCK4i (by virtue of flop 631), the rising edge of PCK4dused to trigger the re-timing flop stage 645 and thus sample thePCK1-aligned clock-enable signal occurs immediately after PCK4i goeslow. By this design, a full (or nearly a full) PCK4i clock cycle ofsetup and hold time is provided before the re-timed clock-enable signal,ENPCK4c, is sampled in another re-timing flop stage 647 by the nextfalling edge of PCK4i to produce the final re-timed clock-enable signal,ENPCK4r, used to gate PCK4 on and off. As shown in FIG. 11D, the netresult is that the final re-timed clock-enable signal, ENPCK4r, changesstate only in response to a low-going edge of PCK4i and only after aninteger number of PCK1 clock cycles have transpired since the last statechange. By this operation, problematic runt pulses on the PCK4 outputare avoided and the clock phase relationship between PCK1 and PCK4 ismaintained through clock stop and re-start, thereby preserving thecalibrated state of the drift-compensating serializer and deserializercircuitry within the memory controller.

The techniques and circuitry shown in FIGS. 11C and 11D may also beapplied within the clock-stop logic for the controller-side I/O clock,PCK8, thereby avoiding runt pulses on the PCK8 clock line and ensuringthat the number of PCK8 pulses that are disabled (or suppressed) duringclock stop matches, accounting for the 2:1 clock ratio, the number ofdisabled PCK4 pulses.

FIGS. 11E-11G illustrate an alternative clock-stop architecture 650 andcorresponding circuit and timing diagrams. In contrast to the separatePCK4 and PCK8 clock-stop circuits in the architecture of FIG. 11A, theclock-stop architecture 650 includes a single clock-stop logic circuit651 that disables toggling of the internal PCK8 clock phases (PCK8i)that yield the final PCK8 clock phases and, after frequency division,the system clock signal PCK4. Except for the absence of clock-stopcircuits 601 and 605, and the provision of a solitary clock-enablesignal (ENPCK8/4) instead of multiple clock-enable signals, thefunctional elements of architecture 650 operate generally as describedin reference to their like-numbered counterparts in FIG. 11A. Also, asin the embodiment of FIG. 11A, the controller core clock, PCK1, maycontinue to toggle after the PCK8i clock phases (and therefore the PCK8and PCK4 clocks) have been stopped.

FIG. 11F illustrates an embodiment of a clock-stop circuit 670 that maybe used to implement the clock-stop circuit 651 of FIG. 11E. As shown, aclock-enable signal (ENPCK8/4) from the controller core domain issampled in response to the baseline PLL output phase, PLL[0°] (a clockphase having an 8× frequency relative to the core clock) in flip-flop671, thereby re-timing the clock-enable signal into the PLL-output clockdomain as re-timed enable signal 672. Other re-timing circuits may beused to re-time the clock-enable signal in alternative embodiments,including a staged re-timing circuit that transfers the clock-enablesignal through a sequence of timing domains before finally retiming intothe PLL output clock domain. The re-timed enable signal 672 is sampledin response to a falling edge of PLL[0°] to lower a clock0-enable signal(clk0-en) at the start of the logic-low half-cycle of the PLL[0°] clocksignal. A multiplexer 674 (or other selector circuit) responds to thelowered clock0-enable signal by decoupling the corresponding PCK8ioutput (PCK8i[0°]) from PLL[0°] and coupling the PCK8i output to groundto hold the output low and effect a clock stop. The re-timedclock-enable signal 672 is similarly sampled by the falling edge ofPLL[60°] to lower clock1-enable signal (clk1-en) at the start of thelogic-low half cycle of the PLL[60°] clock signal. Multiplexer 676responds to the lowered clock1-enable signal by decoupling the PCK8[60°]output from PLL[60°] and coupling the output to ground. Finally, a moredelayed instance of the re-timed clock-enable signal 680 (generated, forexample, by a buffer-delayed instance of the clock0-enable signal) issampled in response to the falling edge of PLL[120°] to lowerclock2-enable signal (clk2-en) at the start of the logic-low half-cycleof the PLL[120°] clock signal. Multiplexer 678 responds to the loweredclock2-enable signal by decoupling the PCK8i[120] output from PLL[120°]and coupling the output to ground. As shown by the shaded clock-stopregion of FIG. 11G (showing suppressed clock pulses in dashed outline),the clean stoppage of the PCK8i clock phases in response to the loweredclock-enable signal yields correspondingly clean stoppage of thePCK8[0°, 60°, 120°] clock phases, the PCK4 clock phase and thus thememory-side clocks, MCK4 (and MCK1, not shown). Clean re-start of allstopped (or paused or disabled) clocks is similarly achieved by raisingthe clock-enable signal (ENPCK8/4). That is, the rising edge of theclock-enable signal (further re-timed as necessary to meet setup andhold time requirements for each PLL output phase) is sampled in responseto the low-going edge of the PLL clock phase to be re-enabled, switchingthe multiplexer selection at the start of the logic-low interval foreach PLL clock phase to enable glitchless re-coupling of the PLL clockphase to the corresponding PCK8i clock node. Although not specificallyshown in FIGS. 11F and 11G, complementary instances of the 0°, 60° and120° PLL clocks (180°, 240° and 300°) may similarly be disabled andenabled according to the state of the clock0-enable, clock1-enable andclock2-enable signals, respectively. Also, as in the various embodimentsdescribed above, more or fewer PLL output phases may be generated inalternative embodiments.

Entering and Exiting Clock-Stop Mode—System Operation

In one embodiment, clock-stop low power mode is entered whenever thememory controller has completed all requested memory transactions andthus run out of work. In one embodiment, this idle state is determinedby power mode logic within the memory controller core which monitors aqueue of pending transactions (“transaction queue”) and is thus informedwhen the transaction queue is emptied. Rather than stop the controllerI/O and system clocks immediately upon emptying the queue, the powermode logic waits at least long enough for the last transaction pulledfrom the queue (i.e., the final transaction) to be completed, at leastfrom the stand point of the memory device and the controller I/Ocircuitry, and then deasserts the clock enable signals, ENPCK4 andENPCK8, to cleanly stop the controller I/O and system clock signals(PCK8 and PCK4, respectively).

FIG. 12A is an exemplary timing diagram of clock signals, clock-enablesignals and command/address signals at the memory controller during aninterval that includes entry and exit from a clock-stopped low powermode. The clock signals include the controller core clock PCK1, thesystem clock signal, SCK (PCK4 within the memory controller), and thecontroller I/O clock PCK8. Continuing the exemplary embodimentsdescribed above, data and commands are transmitted at 3.2 Gb/s; two bitsper 0.625 nS system clock cycle and eight bits per 2.5 nS (nanosecond)core clock cycle. By this arrangement, an 8:1 serialization pipeline isestablished, with outgoing information presented to eachdrift-compensating serializer as an 8-bit packet (i.e., byte) during agiven cycle of the core clock signal, while the bits of a previouslypresented packet are serially transmitted in respective bit-times(bit-time or t_(BIT)=t_(PCK8) (PCK8 period)) during that same core clockcycle. Thus, as shown in FIG. 12A, t_(PCK1)=t_(PKT)=4*t_(SCK)=8*t_(BIT),where ‘*’ denotes multiplication. Different transmission frequencies,clock ratios, serialization ratios and packet sizes may be selected inalternative embodiments.

Within the memory controller, packets of data and command/address (CA)bits are supplied to the I/O circuitry via 8-bit wide data lanes and CAlanes, respectively. In one embodiment, each memory access command andcorresponding address are packed into two eight-bit packets that maythus transmitted over the two CA links (CA[0] and CA[1]) in a singlepacket-time. When no packets remain to be sent, “no-operation” commands,depicted as “NOP” command packets (e.g., zero-filled packets) aretransmitted to the memory device via the command path (CA[0], CA[1]),and the controller core begins a countdown to completion of the lastmemory access command transmitted on the command path (the “finalcommand”). During the countdown, clock-stop mode is said to be pending,and the power-mode logic within the controller core is in pre-clock-stopstate in which all clocks continue to toggle to provide timing edgesnecessary for write data to be stored within the memory core in the caseof a final write operation, or for read data to be returned from thememory core, deserialized and presented at the controller I/O-to-coreinterface in the case of a final memory read command. If no newtransaction is queued within the transaction queue by the time the alloperations associated with the final command are completed within thememory device and controller I/O circuitry, the power-mode logicdeasserts the clock-enable signals, ENPCK4 and ENPCK8 for the systemclock and controller I/O clocks, PCK4 (SCK) and PCK8, respectively.

Within FIG. 12A, entry into clock-stop mode begins with transfer(removal or dequeuing) of the final remaining memory access request froma 16-bit wide transaction queue (T-Queue[15:0]) to the controller I/Ocircuitry via 8-bit wide command lanes Cadata[0][7:0] andCadata[1][7:0]. The command data lanes themselves may be implementedwithin the packet-alignment circuit (i.e., packet alignment FIFO or skipcircuit) that enables crossing from the core clock domain to the framingclock domain for a given signaling link. Thus, each successive command,whether a NOP or memory-access command (OP), may be forwarded within thepacket-alignment circuit in response to a falling edge of the core clock(PCK1), transferred into the framing clock domain a calibrated (andlink-specific) number of bit-times later and then serialized fortransmission via the CA[0] and CA[1] links. Thus, a final operation,designated “OP0,” is transferred from the transaction queue to thecommand lanes at time 702, forwarded across the packet-alignment circuitstarting at time 704 (in response to a falling PCK1 edge) and thentransferred from the packet-alignment circuit to a serial shift registerwithin the controller-side deserialization circuitry (e.g., formed bythe flop-stages 315 shown FIG. 3D) after a serialization delay,t_(SERIAL), that corresponds to a PCK1 cycle plus the bit-wise offsetbetween the de-framing clock signal (TCK1[i] in FIG. 3D) and PCK1.Thereafter, data is shifted out of the serial shift register bit by bitto effect serial data transmission over the CA[0]/CA[1] signaling link.

The bit-variability between the different signaling links is emphasizedin FIG. 12A by the 4-bit-time difference between the serializationdelays for the CA[0] and CA[1] signaling links. That is, the bit-wiseoffset between the core clock and the de-framing clock for link CA[0](i.e., between PCK1 and TCK1[i]) is zero, so that the low-order packetof OP0 is transferred to the serial shift register for the CA[0] linkone PCK1 cycle (t_(SERIAL)=8 bit-times) after being transferred from thetransaction queue to the CA[0] packet-alignment circuit, and thustransmitted bit serially over the CA[0] signaling link starting at time706. Thus, the serialization delay, t_(SERIAL), is one PCK1 cycle or 8bit-times. By contrast, a four-bit offset exists between the core clockand de-framing clock for link CA[1] (i.e., between PCK1 and TCK1[i+1])so that, following transfer of the high-order packet of OP0 from thetransaction queue to the CA[1] packet-alignment circuit, a 12-bit-timeserialization delay elapses (or transpires) before the packet istransmitted over the CA[1] signaling link (starting at time 708).Overall, the difference between the 8-bit-time and 12-bit-timeserialization delays yields a 4-bit-time offset (or bit-variability)between controller-side transmission of the low- and high-order packetsof OP0, not counting any sub-bit-time phase offset that may existbetween the transmit clocks for the CA[0] and CA[1] links (i.e., phaseoffset between TCK8[i] and TCK8[i+1]). Overall, the bit-variability andsub-bit phase offset result in time-staggered transmission of associatedcommand/address packets and data packets to enable memory-side datasampling, deserialization and I/O-to-core transfer all withoutmemory-side clock adjustment circuitry. Though not shown in FIG. 12A, asimilar bit-variability and sub-bit phase offset is tolerated withincontroller-side data deserializers to enable memory-side core-to-I/Otransfer, serialization and data transmission without memory-side clockadjustment circuitry.

Continuing with the clock-stop example in FIG. 12A, upon transferringthe final memory access operation (i.e., OP0) from the transaction queueto the command lanes for links CA[0] and CA[1], the power-mode logicdetermines that the transaction queue is empty and thus begins acountdown to deassertion of the clock-enable signals for the systemclock and controller I/O clock. In one embodiment, the countdown time isoperation specific and thus specified as t_(CA(OP)-EN), with “OP”indicating the nature of the memory access request (e.g., row operationsuch as activate or precharge, or column operation such as memory reador memory write, though operation times particular to other non-DRAMtypes of memory storage may apply, such as program and erase times).Alternatively, a fixed countdown time may be applied, irrespective ofthe type of operation being performed. In either case, the goal is toensure that sufficient clocking edges are provided to the memory deviceand the controller I/O circuitry to complete the last memory accessoperation. In general, the worst-case latency between emptying thetransaction queue occurs in a memory read operation, which includes thecommand serialization time (including worst-case bit variability),propagation over the command path, the data retrieval and serializationlatency of the memory device (referred to collectively herein as the CASlatency), the read data propagation time on the data path, and finallythe controller-side data deserialization time. In an operation-specificembodiment, the power-mode logic may index a register bank (or lookuptable) based on the final operation and thereby retrieve a countdownvalue (e.g., number of core clock cycles to transpire before deassertingthe clock-enable signals). In a fixed-count embodiment, the countdownvalue may be programmed at system start-up based run-time orproduction-time or design-time measurement of the worst-case time tocomplete a memory read operation, or by programming a one-time registerat system production time, or even implementing a hard-wired, worst-casecount value.

However implemented, if a new memory access request is inserted into thetransaction queue (or otherwise received) during the countdown to clockstop (i.e., while the power mode logic is in a clock-stop-pending mode),the pending clock-stop is aborted and the power mode logic returns toactive mode, continuing to monitor the transaction queue for emptystate. But if no new memory access request is queued within thetransaction queue prior to countdown completion, the power mode logicdeasserts the clock-enable signals, ENPCK4 and ENPCK8, thus triggering aclock-stop operation.

As described above, ENPCK4 and ENPCK8 are generated within the coreclock domain and thus are re-timed within the PCK4 and PCK8 domains toensure clean stopping (or pausing or disabling) of the PCK4 and PCK8clocks. Further, in an embodiment in which the PCK4 and PCK8 domains(i.e., the system clock and controller I/O clock domains) are permittedto be phase offset from one another (e.g., as in the embodiment of FIG.2A), the deassertion times of the re-timed clock-enable signals, ENPCK4rand ENPCK8r, may be different, thereby resulting in different clock stoptimes for the PCK4 and PCK8 clocks. In the exemplary timing diagram ofFIG. 12A, this variation in clock-stop times is shown by the twobit-time (two PCK8 cycles, one PCK4 cycle) offset between the PCK4clock-stop time and PCK8 clock-stop time. That is, the re-timing delay,t_(C8DL) (or disable latency), in the PCK8 clock-stop logic, is twobit-times longer than the re-timing delay, t_(C4DL), in the PCK4clock-stop logic. Because both clocks are stopped for an integer numberof PCK1 cycles, the same two-bit-time offset applies at clock re-startso that the same number of clock pulses are generated, after accountingfor any clock ratio (2:1 in this example), in the PCK8 and PCK4 clockdomains.

One significant challenge in stopping the controller I/O clock isdemonstrated by the bit-variability permitted within the variouscontroller-side serializer/deserializer circuits. That is, becausebit-variability is permitted between the controller-side timing domainsfor the different signaling links (in effect staggering those domains asnecessary to achieve alignment with counterpart uncompensatedmemory-side timing domains), the packet boundaries for the differentlinks are themselves offset. From a clock-stop perspective, no matterwhere the controller I/O clock is stopped, one or more CA packets may beonly partly serialized, in effect fracturing the packet into parts thatappear on either side of the clock-stop interval (e.g., 711 and 712).Because PCK8 is stopped cleanly for an integer number of PCK1 cycles,however, the remaining fraction of the packet (712) is properlyserialized upon clock re-start, and a new packet de-framed andtransmitted at a packet boundary that reflects the pre-establishedrelationship between the controller-side de-framing clock and coreclock, PCK1. That is, the bit-wise (and intra-bit phase) offset betweenthe controller core clock (PCK1) and de-framing clock (e.g., TCK8[i]) ismaintained so that the remaining bits of any clock-stop-fractured packetare transmitted and a new packet de-framed as though no clock-stop hadoccurred. Visually, this may be imagined by slicing the diagram of FIG.12A along the start-clock boundary and shifting the portion of thediagram that appears after clock re-start left to line up with theclock-stop boundary. As can be seen, packet framing boundaries aremaintained so that all clock-stop-fractured packets are made whole uponclock re-start.

Reflecting on the clock-forwarding architecture described thus far,because any number of system clock pulses may be in flight (i.e.,propagating on the clock link) to the memory device, the specific systemclock edge used to enable reception or transmission of a bit on a givensignaling link will generally be offset in time relative to a nominallyaligned edge of the controller I/O clock. That is, assuming that acontroller I/O clock edge and system clock edge are outputsimultaneously from the controller-side clock generator, the I/O clockedge will generally be applied to time a data reception event within thecontroller-side I/O circuitry while the system clock edge is stillen-route to the memory device or to the memory device I/O circuitry.From a clock-stop perspective, this means that even if the system clockand controller I/O clock are stopped simultaneously at the memorycontroller, the memory device will nevertheless experience more clockedges than the controller I/O circuitry (accounting for clock ratio), asthe longer system clock pipeline takes longer to drain. And similarly,from a clock-start perspective, if the system clock and controller I/Oclock are started simultaneously, the controller I/O circuitry willbegin receiving clock pulses before the memory-side I/O circuitry due tothe longer memory-side clock pipeline. This presents a substantialchallenge for managing fractured packets as any remaining portion of thepacket may be transmitted by the controller I/O circuitry may arrive atthe memory device, before (or after) system clock edges have arrived tosample the incoming data. More generally, bits of any command or datapacket transmitted on clock-restart may be dropped if they arrive at thememory device before clocking edges are available to time theirreception. In one embodiment, this complexity is managed by (i)transmission of no-operation (NOP or no-op) commands for an intervalleading up to clock-stop and for an interval following clock re-start,and (ii) ensuring that the phase relationship between thecontroller-side core clock (PCK1) and memory-side core clock (MCK1) ismaintained through the clock-stop interval. First, no-op transmissionimmediately before and after the clock-stop interval insures that nomeaningful commands or data is dropped as the forwarded-clock pipelinefills. That is, because no data is transmitted in conjunction with theno-op commands, and no memory access commands are specified, loss ofbits initially transmitted upon clock-restart is of no consequence.Second, by maintaining the PCK1 to MCK1 phase relationship, therelationship between the controller-side framing/de-framing clocksignals and the memory-side framing/de-framing clock signals establishedat initial calibration are maintained upon clock-restart. That is, whenmeaningful (i.e., not no-op) commands (CAs) and data are eventually sentover the command and data paths, the commands and data will be properlyframed by the receiving device, enabling system operation to continuewithout need to re-align counter-part framing/de-framing clocks.Further, because of the open-loop clock distribution architecture withinthe memory device, the phasing of the memory-side transmit and receiveclocks remains substantially unchanged through clock-stop, so that thephase-adjustments in place within the controller-sideserializer/deserializer circuitry prior to clock-stop remain valid afterclock re-start, thereby enabling immediate and reliable data and commandtransmission upon clock re-start.

Continuing with FIG. 12A, after clock stop, the core clock continues torun (i.e., oscillate, toggle) so that the controller core may continueto receive and queue host-requested memory transactions and thepower-mode logic may continue to monitor the transaction queue todetermine whether and when a new transaction request is pending. Upondetecting that a new transaction request is queued, the power mode logictransitions to a clock-start-pending state and raises (asserts) theclock-enable signals ENPCK4 and ENPCK8 at the succeeding rising PCK1edge. The clock-stop logic for PCK4 and PCK8 respond to assertion of thecore-domain clock-enable signals by raising re-timed clock-enablesignals ENPCK4r and ENPCK8r after respective re-timing delays (orenable-latencies), t_(C4EL) and t_(C8EL). In the particular exampleshown, the deassertion- and re-assertion re-timing delays match (i.e.,t_(C4DL)=t_(C4EL) and t_(C8DL)=t_(C8EL)). This will be the case, so longas the deassertion time of the ENPCK4 and ENPCK8 signals is an integernumber of PCK1 clock cycles, as in this example. In the event that theENPCK4 or ENPCK8 deassertion time is not a whole number of PCK1 cycles,the clock-stop logic will re-time the corresponding clock-enable signalto enforce the integer PCK1 clock-stop interval, though the clock-stopre-timing delay and clock-start timing delay will not match.

After the re-timing delay transpires, the PCK4 and PCK8 clock-stopcircuits raise the re-timed clock-enable signals, ENPCK4r and ENPCK8r,respectively, thus enabling the system clock (SCK, PCK4) and controllercore clock to begin toggling. As discussed, the controller core pads there-start interval with some number of no-op commands to ensure that thesystem clock pulses have reached the controller I/O circuitry beforetransmitting a memory command corresponding to the newly queued memorytransaction request. Thus, the new transaction request (shown as “OP1”)is not transferred to the command lanes until some number of core clockcycles after being queued (in this example, after a two-cycle delay), sothat no-op commands are transmitted upon clock-restart. The power-modelogic begins a re-start countdown upon detecting the newly queuedtransaction request, OP1, enabling OP1 to be dequeued one PCK1 cyclebefore the countdown ends (thus providing time for padding no-ops),thereby loading OP1 into the command lanes in time for transfer to theserializers at the conclusion of the restart-countdown. Thereafter(after interval t_(EN-CA(op))), the OP1 command is serialized andtransmitted via CA[0] and CA[1] links, maintaining the calibratedalignment between the de-framing clock edges and core-clock edges (andthus the link-to-link bit variability) after clock re-start.

FIGS. 12B and 12C illustrate clock-stop mode entry and exit from theperspective of the memory device. Referring first to FIG. 12B whichillustrates a memory write operation following clock re-start, a finaloperation is received and transacted at time 720, followed by acountdown to a clock stop at time 722. Note that the countdown intervalshown is enforced by the power-mode logic within the controller asdescribed above and is overlaid on the memory-side timing diagram ofFIG. 12B simply to show that the clock-stop event is pending afterarrival of the final command, OP0. As shown, a sequence of no-opcommands follows OP0, thus enabling the memory-side dataserialization/deserialization circuitry and core logic to complete theoperation specified by OP0 before clock stop occurs. After the countdowninterval transpires, the clock stops as shown, effecting a clock-stoplow power operation of the memory device. Note that while the clock-stopis shown as coinciding with the framing boundary over the CA links, thisis not required under the system operation. Instead, any number ofsystem clock pulses may be en route to the memory device (depending onthe depth of the wave pipeline over the clock link, and the on-memoryclock latency of the open-loop clock distribution architecture) and thusyield clock stop at an implementation-specific (and/or devicelocation-specific, if multiple memory devices are present and disposedat disparate locations from the memory controller) time between framingboundaries. As discussed above, this consequence is accounted for in oneembodiment through the transmission of no-ops to ensure that no datapackets or meaningful command packets are progressing through thememory-side deserializer/serializer circuitry (i.e., not fractured) whenthe clock stops. When the clock re-starts (at system clock cycle 52 inthis example), one or more no-op commands are received, padding thestartup sequence so that clock edges are arriving within the memory-sideI/O circuitry before memory access commands and/or data arrive. In theexample shown, at least one full no-op command is received prior toreceipt of a write command (WR) and accompanying bank address (Ba, toselect one of multiple memory banks within the memory core) and columnaddress (Ca, to select one of multiple columns within a page of dataresident within the sense amplifiers of the selected bank). A time,t_(WRD) (write-command-to-data) after registration of the write command,write data packets and corresponding data mask packets are received overan interval, t_(BL) (burst-length or burst time). Overall, a total of 32bytes and 32 corresponding mask bits are received and transferred to thememory core to be written within the bank (and starting at the columnoffset) specified in connection with the write command.

FIG. 12C illustrates essentially the same clock-stop-mode entry/exit asFIG. 12B, but in the context of a memory read operation. In this case, atime t_(CL) (column-address-strobe (CAS) latency) elapses betweenregistration of a memory read (i.e., command to read data from thememory core from bank addresses Ba and column address Ca) and output of32 bytes of read data (four serialized packets transmitted on each datalink over interval, tBL).

FIG. 13 illustrates clock-stop entry and exit according to analternative embodiment that permits the clock-stop interval to extendover a fractional or non-integral number of core clock cycles. Asdiscussed, constraining the clock-stop interval to an integer number ofcore clock cycles ensures that, when the memory-side core clock isrestarted after clock-stop, the phase relationship between thememory-side core-clock (MCK1) and controller core clock (PCK1) ismaintained. Recalling that MCK1 may, at least in the embodiment of FIG.2A, have one of four phase relationships to PCK1, according to the fourpossible states of the divide-by-four circuit used to generate MCK1 fromMCK4, it follows that, if the integral-core-clock constraint isreleased, the memory core clock may have one of four possible phaserelationships with respect to the controller core clock on clockre-start. From the standpoint of the memory-side serializer/deserializercircuitry, this means that, absent knowledge of the clock-stop interval,any one of four packet-framing/de-framing clocks may apply, each beingaligned with one of four different n*2 bit-time offsets relative to MCK1(i.e., offset by 0, 2, 4 or 6 bit times relative to MCK1). Accordingly,in one embodiment, the memory device includes a 4:1 multiplexer to allowselection of one-of-four packet-framing/de-framing clocks upon clockre-start. Further, instead of transmitting zero-valued no-operationcommands upon clock-restart, the memory controller transmits a combinedno-op, clock-alignment command, shown in FIG. 13 as a “NCK” command. Asan example, each NCK command may include a single pair of ‘1's in apredetermined bit position within the NCK packet (e.g., “11 00 00 00”).By framing the incoming command stream with each of’ the four possibleframing/de-framing clocks upon clock-start, and comparing the fourdifferently framed packets with the expected NCK packet value, theframing clock that yielded the expected NCK may be selected as thememory-side framing/de-framing clock going forward.

Adjusting the chip-to-chip core-clock phase offset

As discussed in reference to FIG. 11A, absent circuitry to force apredetermined power-on/reset state, the exemplary modulo-4 counter (225,616) provided to generate the memory-side core clock, MCK1 (i.e., bydividing the memory-side I/O clock (MCK4) by four), may power up in anyone of four possible states (00, 01, 10, 11) and thus arbitrarilyestablish one of four possible phase relationships between MCK1 and thecontroller-side core clock (PCK1). Because each MCK4 cycle spans two-bittimes, the four possible phase MCK1-to-PCK1 phase relationships arespaced in equal 2-bit-time phase offsets from one another (not countingany phase offset due to propagation over the system clock link or clockbuffer delays). In one embodiment, the MCK1-to-PCK1 phase relationshipis set at power-up (or reset) and thereafter accounted for withoutmodification through the calibration of the bit-alignment andpacket-alignment circuitry within the drift-compensatingserializer/deserializer circuits of the memory controller. Because thismay result in increased latency in some circumstances, a latencyadvantage may be achieved in an alternative embodiment in which the MCK4divider 225 is adjusted during initial calibration to a state in whichthe most latent data link is advanced in phase relative to thecontroller-side core clock domain (imagine advancing the timing ofFCK1[0] in FIG. 3D by two bit times) and thus reduce the worst-case linktiming and by extension the minimum read latency.

FIG. 14A illustrates an embodiment of clock divider that includes,together with the modulo-4 counter 614 described in reference to FIG.11A (i.e., formed by increment logic 616 and 2-bit register 621), amodulo-4 adder 751 that adds a 2-bit core-clock adjustment value(CoreCkAdj[1:0]) to the count output to produce the clock-divideroutput. By this arrangement, the clock-divider output may be shiftedfrom any arbitrary initial value (determined at power-up/reset of themodulo-4 counter 614), to any of the four possible output states (00,01, 10, 11), thereby enabling the phase of MCK1 (i.e., the MSB of thedivider output) to be adjusted relative to PCK1 by 2-bit-time increments(or quadrature steps of PCK1). FIG. 14B illustrates this result, showingthe four exemplary phases of MCK1 relative to PCK1 for each of foursettings of the core-clock adjust value (shown as a subscript to MCK1).For ease of understanding, it is assumed that the modulo-4 counter 614initially powers up in state ‘00b’ so that, at an initial rising edge ofMCK4 (occurring after some period of delay relative to an initial risingedge of PCK4 as shown at 655), the divider output transitions from ‘00’to ‘01’, or from ‘01’ to ‘10’ or from ‘10’ to ‘11’ or from ‘11’ to ‘00’,depending on the state of the core-clock adjust value of generates aphase-adjustable MCK1. As shown, the net effect of each increment in thecore-clock adjust value is to advance MCK1 relative to PCK1 by twobit-times.

FIG. 14C illustrates an exemplary alignment of controller-sidepacket-framing boundaries relative to PCK1 edges for each of foursettings of the core-clock adjustment value, CoreCkAdj[1:0]. In theexample shown, it is assumed that read data is returned with the leastlatency on link DQ[0] and with the most latency on link DQ[0], andfurther that packets arriving via DQ[0] are framed just after a PCK1sampling edge, while packets arriving via DQ[0] are framed just prior tothe PCK1 sampling edge. In an embodiment that employs the packetalignment technique described above in reference to FIGS. 3C-3E, thesystem read-latency is set to the worst-case minimum, and thus to theN+1 latency (N+1 PCK1 cycles) of link DQ[0] as shown for the MCK1 ₀₀case (i.e., CoreCkAdj[1:0]=‘00’). By advancing the phase of thememory-side core clock by two bit-times, however (i.e., as shown atMCK₀₁), all incoming packets arrive two bit-times earlier relative tothe PCK1 sampling edge, and thus may be sampled in response to theN^(th) sampling edge of PCK1 instead of edge N+1, thereby reducing thesystem read-latency by one PCK1 clock cycle (i.e., effecting a systemread latency of N PCK1 cycles). A similar result is achieved when MCK1is advanced by another 2-bit-time interval (MCK₁₀), providing even morecontroller-side margin (and thus potentially more drift tolerance). WhenMCK1 is further advanced by another 2-bit-time interval, however (shownat MCK₁₁), a PCK1 serializing boundary is missed (i.e., data from thecore is not ready for serialization at such an advanced time), thusresulting in data serialization with respect to a one-cycle delayed MCK1edge and therefore even more latent arrival at the memory controllerthan in the MCK1 ₀₀ case.

As FIG. 14C demonstrates, a reduced system latency may be achieved withsome, but not all core-clock adjustment settings. Accordingly, in oneembodiment, each core-clock adjustment setting is tested in turn, forexample, by executing the bit-alignment and packet-alignment operationsdescribed above, to determine the minimum system latency achievable witheach setting. In the event that more than one setting yields the sameminimum system latency the median setting or other statistical center ofthose yielding the same minimum latency may be selected to providemaximum drift tolerance in either direction. In the example of FIG. 14C,because there are two core-clock adjustment settings that yield the sameminimum, additional information may be gathered to determine which ofthe two settings provides the greatest drift tolerance (selecting thatsetting to be the calibration result) or a predetermined selection maybe made (e.g., always select the highest-valued core-clock adjustment,or the last tested adjustment to yield the minimum latency).

Referring again to FIG. 14A, in one embodiment, the core-clockadjustment setting (CoreCkAdj[1:0]) is communicated to the memory devicevia a side-band link, thereby enabling the setting to be revised at theconclusion of controller-side deserializer calibration and prior tocontroller-side serializer calibration. Alternatively, completecalibration may be performed (deserializer and serializer) followed bycore-clock adjustment, iterating as necessary.

Considering that the memory-side core-clock adjustment shifts the phasesof the memory-side core clock and controller-side core clock relative toone another, it follows that the same relative phase shift mayalternatively be achieved by shifting the phase of the controller-sidecore clock rather than the memory-side core clock. In one embodiment,for example, divide-by-8 circuit 163 of FIG. 2A is modified to enablethe phase of PCK1 to be advanced to any of eight divider states and thusto enable PCK1 to be shifted relative to MCK1. In another embodiment,divide-by-2 circuit 165 of FIG. 2A is modified to enable the phase ofPCK4 to be advanced by half cycle (in effect, inverted). Further,instead of clock phase shifting, an adjustment mechanism that suppressessome number of (1, 2 or 3) of PCK4 pulses within the controller-sidePCK4 clock stop logic to set the initial phase relationship between MCK1and PCK1 to achieve the aforementioned latency advantage. In yet anotherembodiment, a phase-shifting circuit (e.g., an interpolator) may beprovided at the output of the PLL to enable the forwarded clock to bephase-stepped with resolution as desired (and practicable) to establisha reduced system latency with fully calibrated drift tolerance (e.g.,stepping or searching through phase settings to find the boundaries ofthe minimum latency window and establishing a final phase centeredbetween the boundaries).

Glitchless Phase Jumping

In one embodiment, the above-described clock-stop logic is employed atthe start and end of a periodic timing calibration operation to suppress(or mask) glitches that may otherwise occur in the controller-sidereceive and transmit clocks during phase jumping. That is, as shown inFIG. 15A, when the phase of the data sampling clock for a given link,RCK8[i], abruptly transitions (i.e., phase-jumps in response toCalClkSel assertion) from the eye-centered phase used to receive livedata (RCK8[i]_(LIVE)) to the boundary phase used to detect timing drift(RCK8[i]_(PTC)), a runt clock pulse 775 short enough to glitch thedeserializer framing logic may appear on the clock line, as shown by thenet clock waveform, RCK8[i]_(NET). More specifically, the runt pulse 775may be so short in duration as to render indeterminate action within thepacket-framing circuitry (i.e., possibly counted by the countercircuitry used to generate the framing clock, possibly not) and thusyield packet framing errors upon returning to live data transfer (i.e.,exiting periodic timing calibration). In general, such clock glitchesand resulting logic glitches may be avoided by suppressing thecontroller-side clock during PTC phase jumping operations.

FIG. 15B is a timing diagram illustrating a pre-PTC clock-stop operationand the resulting non-glitching clock waveform that results(RCK8[i]_(NET)). In general, a single-core-clock-cycle clock-stopinterval is inserted in each transition between live operation (i.e.,run-time read and write data transfer) and PTC operation. The clock-stopinterval enables the transition between live-mode and PTC-mode clockphase selections to be effected while the receive clock is disabled,suppressing any potential runt pulses along with all other receive clockpulses during the clock-stop interval and thus rendering the phase jumptransparent to the deserializer framing logic. Upon clock re-start,receive clock pulses are counted without error by the framing logic,despite the new (PTC) clock phase. This operation is shown in FIG. 15Bby the ordinally numbered pulses, with pulses 0, 1 and 2 being countedin response to the live-mode receive clock phase (RCK8[i]L_(WE)) andpulses 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. being counted in response to the PTC-modereceive clock phase (RCK8[i]_(PTC)). The suppressed pulses in thelive-mode clock and PTC-mode clock are shown in gray shading 778. Notethat the PTC mode clock is shown as toggling concurrently with thelive-mode clock to demonstrate the offset between the two clock phases.In actuality, only the net clock result RCK8[i]_(NET) appears on theRCK8[i] clock line. The net suppressed pulses, including suppressed runtpulse 780, are also shown in gray at 781. Finally, in order to avoidrunt pulses in the return phase jump from PTC-mode to live-mode, anothersingle-PCK1-cycle clock stop operation is carried out as shown at 782.

FIGS. 16A-16F relate to an alternative manner of performingperiodic-timing calibration that enables glitchless phase jumpingwithout clock-stoppage. In general, the alternative approach involves analtogether different clock-drift detection that obviates arbitrary phasejumping in favor of one or more half-bit-time (orhalf-unit-interval(UI)) phase jumps in any transition into or out ofPTC-mode. As discussed below, by limiting each half-UI phase jump to atransition to a new clock phase that leads the former clock phase by ahalf-UI, all clock pulses are ensured to be at least a half-UI induration and thus no shorter than the pulse width of an RCK8[i] clockpulse. Finally, in one embodiment, the exit from PTC mode involves asequence of three half-UI phase jumps carried out in successivecore-clock cycles, and thus effecting a total controller-side phaseadvance of two unit intervals (4*0.5UI=2UI) in the transitions into andout of PTC mode. Accordingly, to maintain the packet-framingsynchronization with respect to memory-side framing and de-framinglogic, the memory controller delays the framing clock by two unitintervals (two-bit times) upon exit from PTC mode.

FIG. 16A illustrates a periodic timing calibration based on samples of asignaling waveform captured at the transitions between data eyes ratherthan during the eye-opening itself. In general, an incoming sequence ofdata values may be sampled in response to a receive clock signal (RCK)at data-eye midpoints to yield a sequence of data samples (s_(i),s_(i+1), s_(i+2), s_(i+3), . . . ) that correspond to the conveyed datavalues (d_(i), d_(i+1), d_(i+2), d_(i+3), . . . ). Further, byoversampling the signaling waveform, additionally capturing samples atthe transitions (edges) between data eyes or “edge samples” (e_(i),e_(i+1), e_(i+2), e_(i+3), . . . ), phase information may be obtainedwhenever the edge sample fails to match either the preceding orsucceeding data sample. More specifically, because a unit interval is,by definition, the time between successive edges in a signalingwaveform, if the waveform is sampled twice per unit interval, once inresponse to a sampling clock signal to generate a data sample and againresponse to a half-UI-shifted version of the sampling clock (or edgeclock) to generate an edge sample, disagreement between an edge sampleand its preceding or succeeding data sample is, in effect, an indicationthat a transition occurred in the signaling waveform (from ‘1’ to ‘0’ orvice-versa) and that the edge sample was captured too late or too early,respectively, relative to the ideal edge sampling point. This result isshown in FIG. 16A by two early/late inequalities: if e_(i) not equal tos_(i) the sample was captured after the transition from s_(i) to s_(i+1)and therefore late; if e_(i) is not equal to s_(i+1), the sample wascaptured prior to the transition from s_(i) to s_(i+1) and thereforeearly. Accordingly, phase error information may be generated bydetermining whether the majority of early/late indications obtained overa given time interval (or over a predetermined number of edge samples)indicate that the edge clock (and therefore the sampling clock) is earlyor late relative to the ideal sampling point (where early/lateindications are in balance) and adjusting the phase of the edge andsampling clocks accordingly.

In one embodiment, the above-described early/late determination iseffected during a periodic-timing-calibration (PTC) operation withoutoversampling and instead by transmitting a known data pattern andgenerating corresponding edge samples using a half-UI-shifted receiveclock (i.e., an edge clock). FIG. 16B illustrates an embodiment of aphase-error detector 801 that compares a set of edge samples (e₀, e₁, .. . , e_(n-1)) with known data samples (d₀, d₁, . . . , d_(n-1), d_(n))in exclusive NOR (XNOR) gates 803 and supplying the resultingsample-early/sample-late (sE/sL) to voting logic 804. In one embodiment,the voting logic is a combinatorial logic circuit that generates a phaseincrement/decrement signal (“Inc/Dec”) according to whether the earlyindications or late indicates predominate (constitute the majority vote)and outputs the increment/decrement signal to update the alignment countof the receive clock signal.

FIG. 16C illustrates an exemplary sequence of operations carried out toeffect a phase update during periodic timing calibration of acontroller-side drift-compensating deserializer. Starting at 821, thereceive clock is phase-advanced by a half UI (0.5UI). Thereafter,memory-side transmission of a predetermined (or predictable) test datapattern is initiated. In one implementation, for example, a side-linkcommand is issued to the memory device to initiate test patterntransmission. Alternatively, the memory device may be placed in theabove-described loopback mode, and the test pattern transmitted from thememory controller to memory device, then re-transmitted from memorydevice to memory controller in a loopback operation. In either case, at823, the memory controller samples the incoming test pattern with ahalf-UI shifted receive clock to generate a sequence of edge samples at825. The edge samples are evaluated at decision block 827 to determinewhether clock-early indications (e_(i)< >d_(i)) or clock-lateindications (e_(i)< >d_(i+1)) predominate. If clock-early indicationsconstitute the majority, the receive clock is deemed late relative tothe desired sampling point, and the corresponding alignment count isdecremented at 828 to advance the clock phase. Conversely, if clock-lateindications constitute the majority, the receive clock is deemed earlyrelative to the desired sampling point, and the corresponding alignmentcount is incremented at 829 to retard the clock phase. Thereafter, thereceive clock is advanced by 1.5 UI at 831 to restore thepre-calibration phase. In one embodiment, this phase advance is effectedby a sequence of three 0.5UI phase advance operations to restore thepre-calibration phase as discussed below in reference to FIGS. 16D and16E. Finally, at 833, two bit-time delay is introduced in the framingclock generator to compensate for the additional pulses that result fromthe net 2UI phase advance of the receive clock. This operation isdescribed in further detail in reference to FIG. 16F.

FIG. 16D illustrates an embodiment of a clock-phase-shifting circuitthat provides a glitchless 0.5UI phase advance in response to aphase-advance signal (“Adv0.5UI). As shown, the circuit includes aring-coupled pair of differential edge-triggered flip-flops 841, 843that are clocked by rising and falling (positive and negative) edges ofthe bit-rate receive clock (RCK8[i]), respectively. The inverting andnon-inverting outputs of the positive-edge-triggered flip-flop 841 arecoupled to corresponding inverting and non-inverting inputs of thenegative-edge-triggered flip-flop 843, while the inverting andnon-inverting outputs of the negative-edge-triggered flip-flop 843 arecross-coupled to the non-inverting and inverting inputs of thepositive-edge-triggered flip-flop 841. By this arrangement, the positive(non-inverted) and negative (inverted) outputs of thepositive-edge-triggered flip-flop 841 transition in response to eachrising edge of the bit-rate clock (RCK8[i]), cycling once every twobit-times, while the positive and negative outputs of thenegative-edge-triggered flip-flop 843 transition in response to eachfalling edge of the bit-rate clock, cycling once every two bit-times,but in quadrature relation (half-UI-offset) relative to the outputs ofthe positive-edge-triggered flip-flop 841. Thus, as shown in FIG. 16E,four half-bit-rate clock signals are generated, iCK_P and iCK_N(positive and negative “in-phase” clocks) and qCK_P and qCK_N (positiveand negative “quadrature” clocks), phase-distributed by half-UIphase-offsets within a 2UI interval (i.e., one cycle of a half-bit-rateclock cycle). As shown in FIG. 16D, the four clock signals are suppliedto input ports of a multiplexer 847 and selected for output in responseto the output of a 2-bit (modulo-4) counter 845. In one embodiment, thecounter 845 is implemented as a gray-code counter (e.g., countsequence=00,01,11,10,00, . . . ) to avoid output glitching and isadvanced in response to the phase-advance signal (Adv0.5UI) to selectthe different clock signals in sequence to effect phase-jumps from onehalf-bit-rate clock to the next. By this operation, and by limiting eachphase jump to a jump from one half-bit-rate clock to a half-UI-advancedinstance of the half-bit-rate clock (i.e., from iCK_P to qCK_N, fromqCK_N to iCK_N, from iCK_N to qCK_P and, finally, from qCK_P back toiCK_P, as shown by arrows 850), the worst-case (shortest-duration) runtpulse is ensured to be at least 0.5UI in duration as shown at 851 and853, no matter when the advance signal is incremented. Accordingly, byensuring that all logic circuits are capable of deterministic responseto 0.5UI-spaced clock edges (i.e., capable of being clocked by adata-rate frequency clock), determinant, glitchless circuit operation isensured.

Still referring to FIG. 16D, it can be seen that a return 0.5UI phasejump from a given half-bit-rate clock to a half-UI-delayed clock (i.e.,as generally desired to restore live operation after periodic timingcalibration is complete) does not yield the same glitchless clockresult. That is, runt pulses of indeterminate duration may be produceddepending on when the phase jump is initiated. In one embodiment, suchrunt pulses are avoided by effecting the return to the original(pre-PTC) clock phase by a sequence of three additional half-UI phasejumps—1.5UI in total—executed in successive core-clock cycles. Finally,because the net effect of the four 0.5UI phase advances (one to providean edge clock during PTC, three to restore the data sampling clockphase) is to advance the phase of the resultant clock by 2 unitintervals, the counter circuitry used to generate the bit framing clockis delayed by two unit intervals to maintain synchronization withrespect to memory-side packet framing. This effect is shown conceptuallyin FIG. 16F which shows that the sequence of four half-UI phase jumpsresults in two additional bit-timing edges within the controller-sideclock (RCK4) relative to the counterpart memory-side clock (MCK4). Inone embodiment, a framing clock delay circuit is provided within thedeserializer of FIG. 3A, to subtract two from the modulo-8 counter usedto generate the framing clock signals, RCK1 and FCK1 upon exit from PTCmode, thus restoring the proper packet-framing boundary.

Returning to FIG. 16D, it can be seen that one consequence of thephase-jumping circuitry is to yield a half-bit-rate receive clock,RCK4[i]. In one embodiment, this consequence is accommodated by revisingthe controller-side serializer/deserializer circuitry toclock-in/clock-out data in response to both rising and falling edges ofthe half-bit-rate clock. In one embodiment, for example, thehalf-bit-rate serializer/deserializer circuits of FIGS. 4A and 4B areimplemented within the memory controller, applying thealignment-count-controlled packet-framing clocks instead of MCK1.

Although FIGS. 16A-16F have been described in reference tocontroller-side receive clock timing, counterpart 0.5UI phase jumpoperations (and transmit-clock generating circuitry) may be executed toeffect periodic timing calibration of the transmit clock phase. Forexample, by phase-advancing the transmit clock phase by 0.5UI, and thenreceiving the resulting memory-side-captured edge samples (e.g., vialoopback), the same increment/decrement decision may be made, in thiscase advancing the transmit clock phase (i.e., advancing the data phaseand effectively retarding the memory-side sampling instant) if the edgesamples indicate an early memory-side sampling instant and decrementingthe transmit clock phase if the edge samples indicate a late memory-sidesampling instant. Similarly, upon exit from PTC, the phase of thetransmit clock may be advanced by 1.5UI in a sequence of 0.5UI phasejumps to restore the pre-calibration transmit phase (now adjustedaccording to edge drift). Finally, the controller-side de-framing clockmay be delayed by a count of two to correct for the two additionaltiming edges (relative to memory-side timing) that result from the four0.5UI phase jumps.

System Applications of Memory System Having Low-Power Clock-Stop Mode

Memory systems having low-power clock-stop mode have been described thusfar in the context of a memory controller and single memory device.While such tightly-coupled controller/memory systems may be used in anumber of mobile applications, a single memory controllerintegrated-circuit (controller IC) may alternatively control multiplememory devices (memory ICs) disposed in a variety of architectures.Further, multiple memory controller channels may be implemented in asingle IC, each controlling a separate group of one or more memory ICsand thus permitting a single clock circuit to generate clock signals formultiple controller-side I/O circuits and open-loop memory-side clockdistribution circuits.

FIG. 17A illustrates an embodiment of a pause-able-clock memory system750 having a single controller IC 751 and multiple memory ICs 755 ₀-755_(n-1). In the embodiment shown, the memory devices (collectively, 755)are disposed on a memory module 753 (generally, a circuit board havingan edge connector for removable connection to a backplane ormotherboard, and thus permitting memory capacity expansion as additionalmemory modules are inserted) and individually include an I/O interfaceand open-loop clock distribution arrangement as shown in FIG. 2A. Inthat case, each of the signaling-link groups shown (752) may include apoint-to-point connection between the memory controller and a respectiveone of the memory devices and may include dedicated clock, CA and datalinks (and data-mask, if needed). Alternatively, some or all thesignaling links may be distributed to all the memory devices of thememory module (e.g., clock link coupled to all memory devices inmulti-drop fashion, and/or command link(s) coupled to all the memorydevices in multi-drop fashion). Additionally, each signaling link may becoupled to multiple memory devices (e.g., data links being coupled to aslice of memory devices across a number of memory modules, as in datalinks [0 to N−1] being coupled to a first memory IC on each of multiplememory modules 753, data links [N+1 to 2N] being couple to a secondmemory IC on each of the memory modules, etc.) thus establishingmulti-drop data and/or command paths. In the latter event, additionaltiming compensation values may apply depending on the memory module (orgroup of memory devices selected from two or more such groups on thesame module) selected for a given memory access transaction. In thatcase, packet, bit and phase adjust values may be switched dynamically,depending on the group of memory devices targeted for a given memoryaccess transaction, with separate set of alignment registers maintainedfor each group.

FIG. 17B illustrates another memory system embodiment, in this casehaving a module-mounted buffer IC 775 that implements an interface 777corresponding to the memory-side I/O interface shown in FIG. 2A. By thisarrangement, a high-speed signaling system having clock-stoppedlow-power mode may be implemented between the memory controller 771 andbuffer IC 775, with more conventional interfaces 729 implemented betweenthe buffer IC and memory devices 781 ₀-781 _(N-1), 782 ₀-782 _(N-1)disposed alongside the buffer IC 775 on the memory module 773. In oneembodiment, for example, command/address values include not only bank,row and column addresses, but also addresses of individual memorydevices 781, 782 (or groups of memory devices) to which the buffer IC775 is to forward the command. The buffer IC may additionally include adata input/output buffer to queue incoming write data for eventualdistribution to an address-selected memory device (or memory devicegroup), and read data to be forwarded to the memory controller. As anexample, in one embodiment, the buffer IC-to-memory device interfacesare relatively slow signaling interfaces that do not require on-memoryPLL/DLL to maintain link integrity, or may be implemented using standardstrobe-based signaling.

Tiered Power Modes

In one embodiment, the mesochronous low-power signaling system describedabove supports two other power modes in addition to the active operatingmode (active mode) and clock-stopped low-power mode described above: apowerdown mode in which biasing current sources within signaltransmitter and receiver circuits are shut down, and a deep powerdownmode in which the controller-side PLL (element 161 of FIG. 2A) may bedisabled along with logic circuitry within the controller core.Transition between all the power modes may be managed by the power-modelogic described above in response to command traffic from the controllercore. The power modes (also referred to herein as power states) may beused to trade increasing exit latency for decreasing power consumption.The following table (Table 1) summarizes memory-controller power stateperformance in one implementation, showing the active-mode (P4) as wellas the three low-power modes:

TABLE 1 Controller Interface power vs. peak Exit Latency interface DQbandwidth Power Mode (PCK1 Cycles) 2.7 GB/s 3.2 GB/s 4.3 GB/s P4 — 80.891.6 114.7 (active) P3 0 15.0 15.7 17.4 (clock-stop; idle) P2 10 4.6 5.26.5 (powerdown) P1 130 0.4 0.4 0.4 (deep powerdown)

As shown, in the P4 (active) mode, 4.3 GB/s (giga-bytes per second) DQbandwidth is provided at 114.7 mW (3.3 mW/Gb/s). In the P3 mode, theclock distribution is paused as described above and the DQ outputdrivers, input amplifiers, and data samplers may additionally bedisabled. In P2 mode, all transceivers are disabled (including the clocktransmitter and receiver circuitry) and only the clock multiplier isactive. In P1 mode, only leakage power is consumed. The entry latency ofeach power state may be made programmable (with a minimum of zeroparallel (PCK1) clock cycles), providing enhanced flow control of thestate transitions. The fast power-state transition times allow efficientuse of burst transfers when peak bandwidth is not required. Details ofthe memory access policy and traffic profile may determine power stateutilization and ultimate efficiency. As discussed above, when thecontroller-to-memory signaling interface is idle, power is saved bysynchronously pausing the clock distribution at its root, cleanlyhalting the downstream circuitry in both the memory controller andmemory device and enabling the fast power-state transition times shownin the table above.

Transition between the different power modes may be managed by the powermode logic 111 of FIG. 1A based on, for example, the status of thetransaction queue 109 (empty or loaded) and/or explicit power-relatedcontrol signals from a host processor or host controller. In oneembodiment, shown for example in FIG. 18A, the power mode logic 111includes a state machine that transitions to progressively lower powermodes—active (P4) to clock-stopped (P3) to powerdown (P2) to deeppowerdown (P1)—as the time without memory access request increases.Thus, when the transaction queue is first emptied and the last-dequeuedtransaction is completed (i.e., all I/O operations relating to thetransaction are completed), the power mode logic transitions from theactive state to the idle state, deasserting clock-enable signal(s) topause the system clock signal and controller I/O clock signals.Thereafter, if the transaction queue continues to remain empty for apredetermined or programmed number of memory access cycles, the powermode logic may transition from the idle state to the powerdown state,issuing signals to disable transmitters and receivers within the memorydevice and memory controller. If the transaction queue remains empty foran extended time interval (e.g., another programmable time interval)after entering powerdown mode P2, or if an explicit host command toenter a further-reduced power mode is received, the power mode logic mayenter a deep powerdown state by disabling operation of thecontroller-side PLL along with circuitry within the controller-side core(e.g., circuitry for interfacing with a host-side data path). Note thatin an embodiment in which the controller-core clock is generated by thePLL, an alternate clock source may be switchably provided (e.g., via amultiplexer) to circuitry required to respond to any memory accessrequest or wake-up/power-up command from the host processor or hostcontroller. Also, instead of generating the controller core clock byfrequency-dividing the PCK8 signal as shown in FIG. 2A, the referenceclock signal or a recovered version thereof may be used as thecontroller-core clock, thus ensuring core-clock clock availability evenafter PLL shut down.

Still referring to FIG. 18A, when a memory access request or explicitwake-up/power-up command is received from the host controller/hostprocessor, the power mode logic responds by transitioning the memorysystem from the deep power down state (P1) to power down state P2 byturning on the controller-side PLL and other disabled controller-corecircuitry. Thereafter, the power mode logic transitions the system frompower down state P2 to clock-stop state P3 by enabling the controllerand memory side clock and command/address transmitters and counter-partmemory-side receivers. Finally, the power mode logic transitions thesystem from clock-stop (idle) state P3 to active state P4 by enablingthe system clock signal and controller I/O clock signals to toggle.

FIG. 18B illustrates a memory system architecture 790 that correspondsto the embodiment of FIG. 2A, but showing additional detail with respectto circuit shut-down in the P4, P3 and P2 power modes. Referring firstto the memory-side I/O circuitry 793, enable-read and enable-writesignals (EnR and EnW) are provided from the memory core to selectivelyenable and disable signal receivers (234) for data and mask links 231,241 and signal transmitters 233 for the data links 231 according to thecolumn operation being performed. That is, during an active-mode (P4)memory read operation in which no write data or write-mask is to bereceived, request decoding logic within the memory core logic lowers theenable-write signal (EnW) to shut-off power-consuming circuitry withinthe write-data and write-mask receivers, thereby reducing powerconsumption. Similarly, during an active-mode memory write operation inwhich no read data is to be transmitted, the memory core logic lowersthe enable-read signal (EnR) to shut off power-consuming circuitrywithin the read-data transmitters.

In one embodiment, I/O amplifier shut-down is effected by disabling oneor more bias current source(s) within a differential or single-endedreceiver/transmitter provided to receive/transmit data signals. FIG. 18Cillustrates an exemplary embodiment of a differential amplifier 810 thatmay form part of such a receiver or transmitter. As shown, amplifier 810includes a passive or active pull-up load 811, differentially coupledinput transistors 813 a/813 b, biasing current source 815 and shut-downtransistor 817. When the enable-write or enable-read signal(generically, “En”) is raised, the shut-down transistor 817 is switchedto a conducting state to enable flow of a DC bias current within thebiasing current source 815 and thus enable the output nodes of thedifferential amplifier (outP, outN) to be differentially raised andlowered according to the differential signal applied at input nodes inPand inN of the amplifier. When the enable signal is lowered, theshut-down transistor 817 is switched to a substantially non-conductingstate to disable flow of the DC bias current and thus renders theamplifier into a reduced power state. In alternative embodiments, theshut-down maybe effected by including the shutdown transistor or otherswitching element at other locations within the amplifier 810 including,for example and without limitation, within the biasing current source815.

It should be noted that the signal receivers 234 and transmitters 233shown in FIG. 18B may do more than amplify incoming and outgoing signalsand thus may include circuitry in addition to (or as an alternative to)the exemplary amplifier of FIG. 18C. For example, the receiver and/ortransmitter circuits (“receiver/transmitter”) may additionally performlevel-shifting operations (e.g., shifting between small-swing signalsconveyed on the signaling link and logic-level signals provided todeserializing circuitry or received from serializing circuitry). Thereceiver/transmitter may perform timed sampling/output operations,increase the current drive with or without voltageamplification/attenuation; provide slew-rate control, supply voltageregulation, etc. Any or all of these operations may use steady-state(“DC”) current sources or other power-consuming circuits that may bequickly disabled and enabled (i.e., turned off and on) in response toenable signals.

FIG. 18D is a timing diagram illustrating command-based assertion of theenable-write and enable-read signals (EnW and EnR) in response toincoming memory write and memory read requests, respectively. Thememory-side I/O clock signal (MCK4), command/address signals, data mask,and read/write data signals all have the general timing relationships asdescribed above in reference to FIGS. 12A-12C. In the specific commandsequence shown, a column write command (WR) including a bank address(Ba) and column address (Ca) are received within the memory device attime 821, with corresponding write data to arrive a predetermined time,t_(WRD), later. Request decoding logic responds to the write command byraising the write-enable signal (EnW) after a write-enable interval(t_(WR-ENW)) elapses, thus enabling operation of the data-inputreceivers (i.e., write-data and data-mask receivers) in advance of theincoming write data, providing a time t_(ENW-D) for the receivers tostabilize. After the write data has been received, if no subsequentwrite request has been received and thus no immediately-succeeding(i.e., back-to-back) write data reception scheduled, the requestdecoding logic may deassert the enable-write signal after time intervalt_(D-ENW) to return the data-input receivers to the reduced power state.Note that specific time intervals are shown for purposes of exampleonly; different t_(WRD), T_(WR-ENW), t_(ENW-D) and t_(D-ENW) intervalsmay be implemented in alternative embodiments.

Still referring to FIG. 18D, a column read command (RD) including a bankaddress (Ba) and column address (Ca) are received within the memorydevice at time 823, with corresponding read data to be output apredetermined time, t_(CL), later. The request decoding logic respondsto the read command by raising the read-enable signal (EnR) after aread-enable interval (t_(RD-ENR)) elapses, thus enabling operation ofthe data-output transmitters (i.e., read-data transmitters) prior toread-data transmission, providing a time t_(ENR-Q) for the transmittersto stabilize. After the read data has been output, if no subsequent readoperation has been received and thus no immediately-succeeding (i.e.,back-to-back) read data transmission scheduled, the request decodinglogic may deassert the enable-read signal after time interval t_(Q-ENR)to return the data-output transmitters to the reduced power state. Notethat specific time intervals are shown for purposes of example only;different t_(CL), t_(RD-ENR), t_(ENR-Q) and t_(Q-ENR), intervals may beimplemented in alternative embodiments.

Returning to FIG. 18B, a powerdown signal or command (PD) is asserted bythe power-mode logic within the controller core upon determining thatthe transaction queue continues to remain empty after transitioning tothe clock-stopped low power mode, P3 (i.e., idle mode). The powerdownsignal is forwarded to the memory device via a power mode driver 795,link (PM[1]), and receiver 797 where it is received within an enablelogic circuit 799 which lowers a command-enable signal, EnCK/CA inresponse. The command-enable signal is supplied to input receivers 223a/223 b and within the system clock interface 221 and command/addressinterface 243, and thus, when lowered, disables the input receivers forthe corresponding clock and command/address links to establish thefurther-reduced power state, referred to herein as the powerdown mode,P2.

FIG. 18E is a timing diagram illustrating powerdown mode entry and exit,with the exit being triggered by a memory write request. As shown, afinal command memory access request (OP) is received starting at time833 and processed during the interval, t_(CA(OP)-CK), that precedesentry into a clock-stopped low power mode (i.e., at clock cycle 32). Asdiscussed above, the tCA(OP)-CK interval may be different for differentcommands and represents the time needed to complete (i.e., supply clockedges for completion of) the last memory access request dequeued fromthe transaction queue. A memory read operation may require more clockedges to finish than a row precharge command, for example.

If the transaction queue continues to remain empty for a predeterminedor programmed time interval (t_(CK-PM)) after clock stop, thecontroller-side power-mode logic asserts the powerdown signal (PD),which results in deassertion of the command-enable signal, EnCk/CA ashort time later (i.e., after delay t_(PM-EN)), thereby disabling theinput receivers for the system-clock and command/address links andestablishing the powerdown mode.

It should be noted that powerdown mode (P2) may alternatively oradditionally entered in response to a command transmitted via thecommand/address path. Such an arrangement would permit the powerdowncontrol to be included (e.g., as an embedded bit or bits) with one orcommands indicating other operations while in P4 or P3 modes. Afterentry into to the powerdown mode via a command received on the commandpath, the powerdown signal may be used to trigger re-enabling of thecommand path and clock signal receivers and thus effect transition backto clock-stop mode (P3).

When a new memory access request is queued within the controller-sidetransaction queue, the power mode logic lowers the powerdown signal toenable a transition from the powerdown mode to the clock-stopped mode(i.e., from P2 to P3). The memory-side enable logic (799 of FIG. 18B)responds to deassertion of the powerdown signal by raising thecommand-enable signal a short time later (i.e., after intervalt_(PM-EN)) enabling the input receivers for the clock andcommand/address links and thus readying the memory device for return toactive mode. Accordingly, a time interval (t_(EN-CK)) after thecommand-enable signal is raised, the system clock is re-started totransition the memory device from clock-stopped mode back to active mode(P3 to P4). Shortly thereafter, the memory access request whichtriggered the return to active mode is received within the memory devicevia the command path, followed by corresponding data a predeterminedtime later. In the particular embodiment shown, the memory accessrequest is a column write request so that the enable-write signal isasserted to enable the input amplifiers of the write-data receivers toreceive write data at the time shown. The memory access request mayalternatively be a column read request as shown in FIG. 18D (in whichcase the enable-read signal will be raised after a time t_(RD-ENR) toenable operation of the read-data amplifiers), or a row access request.

Reflecting on the power-mode transitions and supporting circuitrydescribed in reference to FIGS. 18A-18E, it should be noted thatadditional refinement in power mode control may be provided. Forexample, while the input receivers for the system clock and thecommand/address links are shown as being enabled by a single controlsignal, separate enable signals may be provided for those links inalternative embodiments, thus enabling one link to be disabled/enabledbefore or after the other or to enable links independently of oneanother. Further, the signal applied to enable the input receiver forthe clock link (or one or more additional enable signals) mayadditionally be supplied to clock buffers 229 and 227, particularly ifthose buffers are implemented by circuits that draw non-negligiblecurrent (e.g., current mode logic). Additionally, while the power modesignal is depicted as being supplied via a dedicated link, the powerdownsignal may alternatively be transmitted via a shared link (e.g.,time-multiplexed onto the sideband link shown in FIG. 2) to reduce pincount. Logic circuitry may also be provided within the controller-sidecircuitry to synchronize the powerdown signal with the controller-coreclock signal or another controller-side timing signal. Further, whilenot specifically shown in FIG. 18B, additional enable signals may beprovided to selectively enable controller side transmitter and receivercircuits according to the operations being carried out and the powermode. For example, signals corresponding to the enable-read andenable-write signals (EnR, EnW) may be provided from the controller corelogic to the data receiver and data/mask transmitter circuits (e.g.,elements 188, 187 of FIG. 18B) to disable the data/mask transmitters(and enable the data receivers) during memory read operations and todisable the data receivers (and enable the data/mask transmitters)during memory write operations. Also, the powerdown signal may be usedto selectively enable the command/address transmitters withincommand/address serializers 207 and any clock transmitters 175 andon-chip clock distribution circuits 173, thus enabling a powerdown mode(P2) within the memory controller and providing a power savings over andabove the clock-stop operation itself. The timing of the controller-sideenable-read/enable-write and powerdown signals corresponds generally tothe timing shown for counter-part memory-side signals in FIGS. 18D and18E.

In addition to the foregoing options and alternatives, the t_(CK-PM)time interval that is to transpire before transitioning from clock-stopmode to powerdown mode may be programmably selected (e.g., programmedinto a register within the controller-side power mode logic) accordingto system operating policy or application demands. More generally, allthe timing intervals shown in FIGS. 18D and 18E are provided forpurposes of example only, are not necessarily to scale, and may vary asnecessary to meet operational requirements.

Electronic Representation of Physical Embodiments

It should be noted that the various integrated circuits, dice andpackages disclosed herein may be described using computer aided designtools and expressed (or represented), as data and/or instructionsembodied in various computer-readable media, in terms of theirbehavioral, register transfer, logic component, transistor layoutgeometries, and/or other characteristics.

When received within a computer system via one or more computer-readablemedia, such data and/or instruction-based expressions of the abovedescribed circuits may be processed by a processing entity (e.g., one ormore processors) within the computer system in conjunction withexecution of one or more other computer programs including, withoutlimitation, net-list generation programs, place and route programs andthe like, to generate a representation or image of a physicalmanifestation of such circuits. Such representation or image maythereafter be used in device fabrication, for example, by enablinggeneration of one or more masks that are used to form various componentsof the circuits in a device fabrication process.

In the foregoing description and in the accompanying drawings, specificterminology and drawing symbols have been set forth to provide athorough understanding of the present invention. In some instances, theterminology and symbols may imply specific details that are not requiredto practice the invention. For example, any of the specific numbers ofbits, signal path widths, signaling or operating frequencies, componentcircuits or devices and the like may be different from those describedabove in alternative embodiments. In other instances, well-knowncircuits and devices are shown in block diagram form to avoid obscuringthe present invention unnecessarily. Additionally, the interconnectionbetween circuit elements or blocks may be shown as buses or as singlesignal lines. Each of the buses may alternatively be a single signalline, and each of the single signal lines may alternatively be buses.Signals and signaling paths shown or described as being single-ended mayalso be differential, and vice-versa. A signal driving circuit is saidto “output” a signal to a signal receiving circuit when the signaldriving circuit asserts (or deasserts, if explicitly stated or indicatedby context) the signal on a signal line coupled between the signaldriving and signal receiving circuits. The expression “timing signal” isused herein to refer to a signal that controls the timing of one or moreactions within an integrated circuit device and includes clock signals,strobe signals and the like. “Clock signal” is used herein to refer to aperiodic timing signal used to coordinate actions between circuits onone or more integrated circuit devices and includes both free-runningand gated (i.e., pauseable or stop-able) oscillatory signals. “Strobesignal” is used herein to refer to a timing signal that transitions tomark the presence of data at the input to a device or circuit beingstrobed and thus that may exhibit periodicity during a burst datatransmission, but otherwise (except for transition away from a parkedcondition or other limited pre-amble or post-ample transition) remainsin a steady-state in the absence of data transmission. The term“coupled” is used herein to express a direct connection as well as aconnection through one or more intervening circuits or structures.Integrated circuit device “programming” may include, for example andwithout limitation, loading a control value into a register or otherstorage circuit within the device in response to a host instruction andthus controlling an operational aspect of the device, establishing adevice configuration or controlling an operational aspect of the devicethrough a one-time programming operation (e.g., blowing fuses within aconfiguration circuit during device production), and/or connecting oneor more selected pins or other contact structures of the device toreference voltage lines (also referred to as strapping) to establish aparticular device configuration or operation aspect of the device. Theterms “exemplary” and “embodiment” are used to express an example, not apreference or requirement.

While the invention has been described with reference to specificembodiments thereof, it will be evident that various modifications andchanges may be made thereto without departing from the broader spiritand scope. For example, features or aspects of any of the embodimentsmay be applied, at least where practicable, in combination with anyother of the embodiments or in place of counterpart features or aspectsthereof. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regardedin an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

What is claimed is:
 1. A memory controller comprising: a transactionqueue to store memory read and write requests that, to be serviced,require operation of synchronous data transmission and receptioncircuits, respectively, within a memory device; and power controlcircuitry to: output, to the memory device, a first signal in a firststate to enable operation of the synchronous data transmission andreception circuits within the memory device; determine that thetransaction queue has reached a predetermined state; and in response todetermining that the transaction queue has reached the predeterminedstate, output, to the memory device, the first signal in a second stateto disable operation of the synchronous data transmission and receptioncircuits within the memory device.
 2. The memory controller of claim 1wherein the power control circuitry to output the first signal in thefirst state and the second state comprises clock generation circuitry tooutput the first signal in an oscillating state and in a non-oscillatingstate, respectively, wherein when output in the first state, the firstsignal oscillates at a predetermined frequency.
 3. The memory controllerof claim 2 wherein the clock generation circuitry to output the firstsignal in the oscillating state to enable operation of the synchronousdata transmission and reception circuits within the memory devicecomprises circuitry to output the first signal in the oscillating stateto enable corresponding oscillation of a timing signal delivered to atleast one of the synchronous data transmission or reception circuitswithin the memory device.
 4. The memory controller of claim 2 whereinthe predetermined oscillation frequency of the first signal establishesat least one of a data reception rate of the synchronous data receptioncircuits within the memory device or a data transmission rate of thesynchronous data transmission circuits within the memory device.
 5. Thememory controller of claim 1 wherein the power control circuitry todetermine that the transaction queue has reached the predetermined statecomprises circuitry to determine that the transaction queue is empty orwill be empty within a deterministic time.
 6. The memory controller ofclaim 1 wherein the power control circuitry to output the first signalin the second state in response to determining that the transactionqueue has reached the predetermined state comprises circuitry totransition the first signal from the first state to the second state apredetermined time after a sole remaining memory read or write requesthas been emptied from the transaction queue, wherein the predeterminedtime after the sole remaining memory read or write request has beenemptied from the transaction queue comprises a sufficient time for thememory device to receive and service the sole remaining memory read orwrite request.
 7. The memory controller of claim 6 wherein the powercontrol circuitry to output the first signal in the first statecomprises circuitry to output the first signal in an oscillating state,and wherein the sufficient time for the memory device to receive andservice the sole remaining memory read or write request comprises apredetermined number of oscillation cycles of the first signal beforethe first signal is rendered to the second state, the second state beinga steady, non-oscillating state.
 8. The memory controller of claim 1further comprising synchronous data transmission and reception circuitsto transmit write data to the memory device and receive read data fromthe memory device, respectively, and wherein the power control circuitrycomprises circuitry to disable oscillation of a first clock signal thatenables operation of the synchronous data transmission and receptioncircuits within the memory controller in response to determining thatthe transaction queue has reached the predetermined state.
 9. The memorycontroller of claim 8 further comprising circuitry to generate a secondclock signal that oscillates at a lower frequency than the first clocksignal and that remains oscillating at the lower frequency whileoscillation of the first clock signal is disabled.
 10. The memorycontroller of claim 1 wherein the power control circuitry comprisescircuitry to determine that the transaction queue has exited thepredetermined state by virtue of storage therein of a newly receivedmemory read request or memory write request, and, in response todetermining that the transaction queue has exited the predeterminedstate, to output the first signal in the first state to re-enableoperation of the synchronous data transmission and reception circuitswithin the memory device.
 11. A method of operation within a memorycontroller, the method comprising: outputting, to a memory device, afirst signal in a first state to enable operation of synchronous datatransmission and reception circuits within the memory device; storing,within a transaction queue, memory read and write requests that, to beserviced, require operation of the synchronous data transmission andreception circuits, respectively, within the memory device; determiningthat the transaction queue has reached a predetermined state; and inresponse to determining that the transaction queue has reached thepredetermined state, outputting, to the memory device, the first signalin a second state to disable operation of the synchronous datatransmission and reception circuits within the memory device.
 12. Themethod of claim 11 wherein outputting the first signal in the firststate comprises outputting the first signal in an oscillating state suchthat the first signal oscillates at a predetermined frequency, andwherein outputting the first signal in a second state comprisesoutputting the first signal in a non-oscillating state.
 13. The methodof claim 12 wherein outputting the first signal in the oscillating stateto enable operation of the synchronous data transmission and receptioncircuits within the memory device comprises outputting the first signalin the oscillating state to enable corresponding oscillation of a timingsignal delivered to at least one of the synchronous data transmission orreception circuits within the memory device.
 14. The method of claim 12wherein the predetermined oscillation frequency of the first signalestablishes at least one of a data reception rate of the synchronousdata reception circuits within the memory device or a data transmissionrate of the synchronous data transmission circuits within the memorydevice.
 15. The method of claim 11 wherein determining that thetransaction queue has reached the predetermined state comprisesdetermining that the transaction queue is empty or will be empty withina deterministic time.
 16. The method of claim 11 wherein outputting thefirst signal in the second state in response to determining that thetransaction queue has reached the predetermined state comprisestransitioning the first signal from the first state to the second statea predetermined time after a sole remaining memory read or write requesthas been emptied from the transaction queue, wherein the predeterminedtime after the sole remaining memory read or write request has beenemptied from the transaction queue comprises a sufficient time for thememory device to receive and service the sole remaining memory read orwrite request.
 17. The method of claim 16 wherein outputting the firstsignal in the first state comprises outputting the first signal in anoscillating state, and wherein the sufficient time for the memory deviceto receive and service the sole remaining memory read or write requestcomprises a predetermined number of oscillation cycles of the firstsignal before the first signal is rendered to the second state, thesecond state being a steady, non-oscillating state.
 18. The method ofclaim 11 further comprising disabling oscillation of a first clocksignal that enables operation of synchronous data transmission andreception circuits within the memory controller in response todetermining that the transaction queue has reached the predeterminedstate, the method further comprising generating a second clock signalthat oscillates at a lower frequency than the first clock signal andthat remains oscillating at the lower frequency while oscillation of thefirst clock signal is disabled.
 19. The method of claim 11 furthercomprising, after outputting the first signal in the second state,determining that the transaction queue has exited the predeterminedstate by virtue of storage therein of a newly received memory readrequest or memory write request, and, in response to determining thatthe transaction queue has exited the predetermined state, outputting thefirst signal in the first state to re-enable operation of thesynchronous data transmission and reception circuits within the memorydevice.
 20. A non-transitory machine readable medium that stores datarepresentative of an integrated-circuit memory controller comprising: atransaction queue to store memory read and write requests that, to beserviced, require operation of synchronous data transmission andreception circuits, respectively, within a memory device; and powercontrol circuitry to: output, to the memory device, a first signal in afirst state to enable operation of the synchronous data transmission andreception circuits within the memory device; determine that thetransaction queue has reached a predetermined state; and in response todetermining that the transaction queue has reached the predeterminedstate, output, to the memory device, the first signal in a second stateto disable operation of the synchronous data transmission and receptioncircuits within the memory device.